"No pile gave me greater satisfaction!", Said Mayor Van Hall, who knocked the first pile of the Bijlmer into the ground in 1966. What started as a planning utopia, however, soon turned into a nightmare of impersonal high-rise buildings, crime and a plane crash. Composer Jacques Bank and his brother Fer Bank wrote an opera about the Bijlmer, using texts by architects, planners, administrators, housing
… corporations and newspapers; but also of Virgil and Aeschylos. The idea is very nice, but the makers' need to portray a classic tragedy has unfortunately worked out somewhat forced. De Bijlmer, that 'symbol of fate and the bankruptcy of the social engineering concept' (according to the composer), is undoubtedly worthy of tragedy as a subject; and the crash of the El Al Boeing with all its political aftermath and "truth-finding" undoubtedly is, but that is why there is still no causal connection whereby the one must be seen as the "fate" of the other. Here we see the same as in many bel canto operas, namely that the ominous 'fate' suggests connections that simply are not there. This is not so bad for a purely fictional element, but as a representation of contemporary history such a staging is (despite all good intentions) too sentimental. (HJ) namely that the ominous 'fate' suggests connections that simply are not there. This is not so bad for a purely fictional element, but as a representation of contemporary history such a staging is (despite all good intentions) too sentimental. (HJ) namely that the ominous 'fate' suggests connections that simply are not there. This is not so bad for a purely fictional fact, but as a representation of contemporary history such a staging is (despite all good intentions) too sentimental. (HJ)more
