Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands will attend the opening of the 70th edition of the Holland Festival on 3 June in Amsterdam. The Holland Festival runs from the 3rd of June to 25th of June and is the oldest and largest international festival for performing arts in The Netherlands; it takes place in the city of Amsterdam each year.
The festival features theatre, music, opera, modern dance, multimedia, visual arts, film and architecture. These performances take place in performing venues in Amsterdam. The opening of the festival, which Her Majesty will attend, on the 3rd of June will be held at the National Opera, with the performance of the opera Maria Vespers of Claudio Monteverdi. The opera, a highlight of Monteverdi’s work, reflects the international aspect of the festival perfectly as Monteverdi was Italian and the conductor is Raphael Pichon who is from France. The visual artwork will be created by Berlinde de Bruyckere, who is a Belgian artist. The artistic direction of the opera will be led by Pierre Audi, from Lebanon, who is the artistic director of the Dutch National Opera and was the artistic director of the Holland Festival from 2005 to 2014.
The Holland Festival, created in 1947, allows lesser-known performers to show their arts along with top artists and performers, thus giving them a chance to be discovered by a less specialised public.
A member of the Dutch Royal Family attends the opening of the festival each year. For the past few years, Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima attended together, but it appears that Queen Máxima will attend alone this year. The King could have another event to attend; although, nothing has been announced for him by the Royal House of the Netherlands on the 3rd of June so far.
