Lighting Design by Jan Wawrzyńczak – Photo by Ann E. Wulff

IHOS (ἦχος): Greek for sound

Foundation IHOS Amsterdam is a performing arts company world-renowned for its original opera and theatrical productions which alter expectations of what is possible on stage.
In cavernous industrial spaces and intimate venues alike, the Company creates visually arresting, immersive work that addresses the most urgent issues of our time.

Founded in 1990 in Hobart, Tasmania, and based in The Netherlands since 2013, Foundation IHOS Amsterdam emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinarity as it engages both first-time operagoers and seasoned audiences. Working with a diverse group of film & theatre directors, visual artists, dancers, sound designers, writers, installation artists, and others in fields as far ranging as architecture and digital technology, the Company approaches its subject matter in unconventional—and unexpected—ways. From epic dramatic spectacles to chamber recitals, the work produced by this eclectic and always-growing artistic family resists simple classification.

“About as far away from La Bohème as you can get.”
—Weekend Australian Review

With its experimental, avant-garde approach, the Company has gained international critical acclaim over thirty years for its productions that include Days and Nights with Christ (1990), To Traverse Water (1992; 1995-6), and Tesla — Lightning in His Hand (2003), among many others. Its most recent large-scale work, The Barbarians (2012), was commissioned by Tasmania’s Museum of Old & New Art (MONA) and inspired by Constantine Cavafy’s poem Waiting for the Barbarians.

Forthcoming are the chamber operas Hypnos and After That It Happened, as well as A Deep Black Sleep, an opera incorporating film sequences. Two short films Eros and Thanatos and The Pain of Others by Slavisa Drobnjakovic are planned for release in 2021.

“Very daring, world-class”
Brian Ritchie, Director of MONA FOMA arts festival and Violent Femmes bassist