Dear friend somewhere in the world,

Here in Flanders the Ministry of Culture has been abolished. The Minister-President has taken it on as a hobby and recast it as a Ministry of Trifles. Despite this, things are going well for us. Our artists continue to zealously focus on their work. Triumphal procession in New York with Ivo van Hove and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. When two ‘Flemish’ superstars collaborate, it is good news. How delightful to hear Anne Teresa being her delightful self in interviews: I was doomed to do this, she says with a sigh. Not a trace of glamour or craving for status: oh most Flemish of women. She knows that I love her. And then there’s that Swiss scamp Milo Rau who’s getting an honorary doctorate in Ghent. Congratulations. Very interesting: is the quality of an artwork determined by the effect it has on society?

The theatre company STAN is celebrating its thirtieth birthday. 4,000 performances on 4 continents. This deserves respect. Congratulations STAN! ‘Non-Flemish’ mastery continues to feature prominently at many festivals and theatres in ever-more distant foreign lands. But for how much longer? More and more touring companies are falling by the wayside as a result of the highly radical quid-pro-quo politics that is currently in vogue at municipal theatres, and increasingly at the international festivals too. Municipal theatres across Europe have made deals with one another and are closing ranks. These are the doormen of the cities. To put it bluntly: theatre companies that don't have their own presenting space can forget about it in the future, I'm afraid.

Congratulations also go to Hugo De Greef, who has been knighted in France. Many people might now be asking themselves: who on earth is Hugo De Greef? Well, that’s typical. The man has already been written off several times. I can’t resist listing a few “Flemish” names. Hugo De Greef conjured the Kaaitheater out of nothing. Frie Leysen deSingel and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Jan Hoet the SMAK, Dennis Van Laeken the Monty, and Gerard Mortier too many to mention. Yes, some of them are already dead, and you can go and have a good dance on their graves. But let’s be honest, these people have one thing in common: they were lone wolves who stubbornly did their thing, who didn’t give a fig about diplomas and specialisms. Who when they started out, didn’t even know how to write a dossier. So to all new directors at the above institutions I say: hang a photo above your desk of the person who has paved the way for you to be sitting there now. Or better still, ask one of the artists who owe their success to them to create a bronze bust. One of Frie Leysen, for example, with a hundred cigarettes between her beautiful lips.

In the meantime, we are touring with All the good. Using the motto: ‘Political art destroys the beauty of politics’, we have asked questions about the role of art. This is the first part of a trilogy about political art. I had the disastrous idea of inviting an elite soldier from Israel as a guest actor. The man killed 11 people for his fatherland. A Jewish soldier against a backdrop of Palestinian glassware. By putting a Jewish soldier on stage and not a Palestinian, you can more or less predict each country’s reaction in advance: the Palestinian cause is championed far more passionately in Flanders than in Germany, for example. And then you also sense that people in Flanders don’t really have an opinion about All the good. Perhaps we have been rather too serene in our communication. We have had some intense discussions within Needcompany about whether or not to adopt the NTGent-strategy for the publicity: ‘We show you real suicide’, their figurehead Milo Rau announced in a pre-interview for his last production. Who really hangs himself, I wonder. But: sold out! The man is onto something. This is a timeless phenomenon. 1604. Shakespeare has to fill his Globe. And it’s even free! But how can he fill his theatre when the common people prefer to go to the dog fights? When public executions are cheerful fairs. He must have concluded: with as much sex and violence as possible. I can see the town crier in front of the Globe calling out: ‘Come and see Juliet’s suicide with your own eyes! Watch the lengthy gang rape of Lavinia and then watch her hands being cut off. Real cut-off hands on sale after the performance.’

In the meantime, we at Needcompany are busy preparing for the biggest work that we’ve ever made: Intolleranza 1960 by Luigi Nono, for the Salzburger Festspiele, with 248 performers and musicians on stage. A piece about migration and ecological disaster. Written in 1960 after the ‘massacre’ in Belgium of hundreds of Italian immigrants in Marcinelle in 1956. Opera as provocation. It is a contradiction. But still, here are 248 leading artists working together towards a single goal: to make music that is as good as possible, to present drama that is as good as possible. Beauty, for God’s sake! The Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher and Needcompany: a combination of which I am proud. And to silence the critics: yes this is costing shedloads of money, but almost all of it is going to the performers themselves. The Wiener Philharmoniker is dead expensive because there are so many of them. A horn player only earns a few hundred euros per performance, you know.

I see Intolleranza 1960 as the second part of the triptych on political art. The third part is Billy’s Violence, Shakespeare’s thirteen tragedies as unperformable catastrophes. That is for autumn ‘21. I know, it’s still a bit early but I’m going to do it anyway: ‘Come and look and listen to the most abusive, misogynistic and racist texts enacted by real naked men and women! Real nooky on stage! Hopefully coming soon to a theatre near you!’

I wish you lots of beauty,

Jan