Hagar (2025)

A bold and creative partnership between composer Jan-Peter de Graaff and librettist Eleanor Barlow, HAGAR is a daring, modern and fiercely human reimagining of the ancient tale that explores resilience, scandal, and consequence.

Set within the searing pressure of a high-end restaurant, we are thrown into the flames from the very first word. With an exceptional score from de Graaff, that fuses contemporary opera with kitchen-born percussion, set to the captivating and driven words of Barlow, the audience is forced along a journey where loyalties might not be what you expect.

In a high-pressure kitchen where dreams, desire, and duty collide, three lives are pushed to their limits. Abram, a passionate and dedicated head chef, has long yearned for a child, a dream that he and his wife, Sarai, the sharp and composed manager of their struggling restaurant, have never been able to live.

Their professional world is precise and controlled until something deeply personal upends that fragile order. When a trusted colleague and close friend become entwined in a secret too heavy to bear, the emotional stakes rise. Hope, guilt, and betrayal simmer beneath the surface, threatening to boil over. Sarai’s dignified silence conceals a storm of pain as Hagar clings to a naive hope that friendship can survive even this.

As economic pressures mount and scathing reviews pour in, the kitchen becomes a battleground, not just of culinary craft but of repressed truths. A split-second of distraction, a lapse in judgment, and tragedy strikes. The near destruction of not just their restaurant becomes a fiery reckoning, forcing all three to confront the damage done and the deep fractures beneath the surface.

In the aftermath, they are left with one burning question… can what’s been broken ever truly be rebuilt?

Hagar is scored for 5 voices and a large orchestra and has been commissioned by De Nederlandse Reisopera for their 70th anniversary. The first performance will take place on 28th of September 2025 in a staging by Belle van Heerikhuizen and performed by Hagar Sharvit (Hagar), Alison Scherzer (Sarai), Liam James Karai (Abram), Fiona Kimm (Gertrude) and Glen Cunningham (Gabriel), accompanied by the North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lochlan Brown.

Opera Hagar is a part of the production ‘Second Love’.