Quarantaine Island

Quarantaine eiland

A green oasis amidst the heavy port industry in the heart of the River Maas: that is the national monument Quarantine Station Heijplaat. This 1930s complex was originally intended as a facility for seafarers with infectious diseases, but it also sheltered Jewish refugees, typhoid patients, and psychiatric patients.

n August 2021, the international music theatre festival O. and OPERA2DAY presented the immersive walking performance Quarantine Island at this unique location. Musicians, performers, and guides of various backgrounds and ages immersed visitors in an unforgettable theatrical experience. Upon arrival, audiences walked in small groups across the quarantine grounds, listening to stories and songs about pandemics. The performance featured repertoire from different eras and cultures, as well as testimonies from contemporaries.

Because the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2022 is not a unique or isolated event, but rather a collective condition that humanity has experienced many times before. As early as the 14th century, Boccaccio wrote his Decameron while fleeing the plague in Florence. The diaries of Samuel Pepys offer a glimpse into the epidemic that paralyzed 17th-century London. The typhus outbreak of 1945 in the South Holland islands is still very recent—so recent, in fact, that we were able to include an eyewitness account in the performance.

And a pandemic affects us all—it reveals our shared fate and interconnectedness. The plague once traveled along the Silk Road, offering a powerful opportunity to weave together music and stories from different times and cultures. During the performance, visitors heard, among other things, a raw blues ballad and a heart-wrenching Turkish love song, a diary excerpt from London during the Great Plague, and a verse from plague-stricken Florence.

As audiences made their way across the Quarantine grounds, they could feel and understand that we are all connected—across the globe and through the centuries. The music from all corners of the world gave voice to sorrow and mourning, but also to resilience and the hope for better times.

“Hear something you’ve never seen” is the motto of Festival O. Together with OPERA2DAY, the festival offered the audience a chance to be transported by music, dance, song, and landscape on the resonant Quarantine Island.

Artistic Team

Director: Davy Pieters
Musical Development: Hernán Schvartzman
Script and Dramaturgy: Tobias Kokkelmans
Costume Design: Sara Hakkenberg

Cast

Influenza Blues: Robby Alberga (vocals and guitar)
Mentshn Fresn: Michal Bitan (vocals), Oleg Fateev (bayan)
Bourrée: Lies Sommer (hurdy-gurdy)
Dowland – Come Again: Klaartje van Veldhoven (vocals), Regina Albanez (lute)
Strozzi – Cosi na non voglio: Klaartje van Veldhoven (vocals), Regina Albanez (lute)
Callin Davullari: Burak Savas (vocals and violin), Erhan Karagös (bağlama)
China: Zheng Sun (erhu)