FULL BETWEEN TWO LIGHTS (Huang Ruo) Antwerp 2025

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: BETWEEN TWO LIGHTS   
• Composer: Huang Ruo  
• Libretto: Huang Ruo    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium  
• Recorded: June 4, 2025
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Mónica Monteiro, Bethany Shepherd, Lauren Armishaw , Ingeborg Dalheim, Melina Meschkat, Rosina Fabius, Åsa Olsson, Jenni Reineke, Emilio Aguilar, William Knight, Mattijs Hoogendijk, Twan van der Wolde, Jasper Schweppe, Jouke Wijmenga, Zigmārs Grasis, Hans Wijers
• Conductor: Huang Ruo   
• Orchestra: HERMES ensemble  
• Chorus: Netherlands Chamber Choir  
• Stage Director: Aïda Gabriëls, Tido Visser  
• Stage Designer: Lise Bruyneel  
• Costume Designer: Maarten van Mulken  
• Lighting Designer: Peter Quasters  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: OperaVision  
• Date Published: 2025  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  With the music theatre piece Between Two Lights, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and Music Theatre Transparant present a world premiere by renowned Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo. In Between Two Lights, he wants to make death tangible. Not with terrifying visions, but in a ritual that offers comfort and in which we gently open ourselves up to the thought of death. By doing so, we feel closer to those who have passed away and come closer to being at peace with our own mortality.

  In his work, Huang Ruo blends elements of Asian and Western culture, and his new style of music creates a bridge between these two seemingly completely different worlds.

  A concerted soundscape about death, emptiness and life in between. Huang Ruo builds musical bridges between Asia and the West, but also between life and death.

  What lies between the end of one life and the beginning of another? Is there a space in between—a moment when we are no longer who we were, yet not yet who we are becoming?

  Between Two Lights is neither a traditional narrative opera nor a classical concert. It is a physical listening experience—a journey to the edge of existence and back. In crafting this composition, Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo drew inspiration from the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist text in which emptiness and form intertwine. This is no abstract mysticism, but a meditation on the moment that affects us all: the fleeting interval between what we leave behind and what lies ahead.

  During the pandemic, Huang Ruo experienced the profound loss of his mother. He returned to his home village and participated in a traditional mourning ritual lasting seven days, followed by six weeks of bardo—a time of transition, silence, and search. From this personal grief, the first notes of Between Two Lights were born. The piece consists of musical mantras—patterns that do more than sound; they become physically tangible. Sound, in this piece, carries rhythm, breath, and memory. Sixteen singers from the Netherlands Chamber Choir, two percussionists from the HERMESensemble, performer Grace Ellen Barkey, and Huang Ruo himself move through the space, their voices and bodies resonating and amplified by silence. Voice transforms into movement.

  Do we dare to face the moment when everything falls silent? To look into the unknown, the emptiness? To recognize what binds us all, yet is seldom spoken of?

  Quoted from Muziekgebouw

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