Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher (1594 –1649), named after her father’s sunken ship near Texel, was an icon; muse of the great poets of the golden age. “But I’m also human.” For example, writer Nelleke Noordervliet introduces herself as Tesselschade in the literary concert ‘Each his why!’ by Camerata Trajectina. The company focuses on keeping musical national history alive, and Noordervliet’s remark sets the tone. In the I-form she tells her life story, interspersed with music and poetry by her friends: Hooft, Vondel, Huygens.
Those friends all belong to the mythical Muiderkring: poets and scholars who hung out at the Muiderslot and killed the time there by singing their own work. Idyllic, but it is also a time of strife, war and religious conflict. As a result, the relationships in the group of friends come to a head. Parallels with the present are there for the taking, but fortunately they are not spelled out.
The musicians bring atmosphere to the 1970s church building in Almere from the first notes. The music is often light and easy to digest, the singers are mischievous when the text asks for it and at times really moving.
Intense Courting
In this way, the company brings the 17th-century Dutch elite to life, without being sacrilegious about it. The danger is that such a modern story will become too funny and popular, or that it will remain too stately and distant. But Noordervliet, who wrote the script himself, walks that tightrope perfectly.
The haughty Constantijn Huygens is the worst off. When Tesselschade develops Catholic tendencies after the death of her husband and daughter, he reacts unreasonably angry and blunt. ‘Joost’ – that is Vondel – is already more sympathetic, but somewhat flammable. And many will recognize someone in Bredero, according to Noordervliet’s remark about Gerbrand’s style of courtship. “He was a little, how shall I say, intense.”