THE STORY OF 'NORTHERN LIGHT'
Welcome to the rock opera of Medea: ‘Northern Light’. A new concept, a new story, based on an old religious folktale from Lapland about eternal life.
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“God created man made up of a body and a soul. However, after a relative short time of life, the human body decays (the coming death), but the soul lives on. And in exchange for this lack, God has offered the soul an eternal life, not on earth but in the afterlife, so the soul can take her place in eternity. Here on earth we call these souls ‘the souls of the dead’ who come to shine their light on the living during the polar night”.
Tristan, a young man in the prime of his life, is fishing on the shore of an ancient lake in the forest. It’s his most beloved and oldest lake of Lapland. On a certain moment he’s being noticed by Vegard, an old and wise, but above all peculiar man who appears to posses eternal life. He tells him about all his wealth and by a trick, he can persuade Tristan to go with him to his particular cottage. In that cottage there’s a mysterious bottle from which an impressive bright light is glowing. They are three souls, three beams of the northern light who allowed themselves to be captured in this bottle by Vegard. So they can assist in the preservation of Vegard’s eternal life on earth. With their help he constantly will be able to remain forever young by switching with another person’s body. In doing this, he demonstrates the Lord, he succeeded there where the Creator has failed.
Now he’s targeting the body of the young Tristan. In an intense personal contest between the two characters, Tristan is trying to get away from the Northern Light by means of his own strength and his faith in God.
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The three souls all have their own identity and their own life story. They‘ve also got an own personal reason why they’ve lost their faith in God. For all three of them there’s obviously a reason to do something bad for revenge.
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‘Northern Light’ is not only a story about religion vs distrust and disappointment, or about death vs eternal youth, but it also raises issues such as industrialisation, child soldiers, medical mistakes, autism and parent-child relationship.
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(Original story by Robert Crottet)
GUEST MUSICIANS
FRANK DE GROOT Bass
IGOR KOOPMANS
Drums
CHARACTERS
TRISTAN performed by Ernst Le Cocq d'Armandville
A Young fisherman who’s enjoying his quiet life in the great outdoors communing with nature, together with his fiancée. He is strong, handsome and has got the body every young man would envy. He’s someone who believes in the goodness of people and he is strongly convinced there’s nothing like being loyal to God, to bring out the best in man. From that point of view he decided to help and he accepted Vegards offer.
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VEGARD performed by Joss Mennen
A 2000 years old and wise, but above all, very peculiar man. In a battle with the Lord he conquered death by catching three souls of the dead and put them into a bottle. With these beams of light he's able to control and maintain eternal life. He just has to switch bodies from time to time. Now, again he’s got a mission: to find a new body to switch, so he can continue his life in that young body.
Mr. HALLGRIM -¥- performed by Rob Laarhoven
One of the three souls, a 'beam of light' captured in the bottle. He’s a personalization of a father who has a young daughter with autism. The girl was forced to be placed in a mental institution because at home, Mr. Hallgrim couldn’t stand the situation anymore. Her form of autism made her incapable to contact with other people. He couldn’t reach her and he repeatedly failed to understand her. Mixed feelings took part in his situation. On the one hand he was ashamed for the opinion of the people, on the other side he felt intense grief, pain, helplessness and guilt. That’s why he felt abandoned by God.
MERYLIN -§- performed by Sandra Peeters
She is the second forgotten soul in the bottle. A mother with a constant fear of going to sleep into the night. A dark night without a moon, where she constantly roams in a labyrinth of sorrow. This grief arose from the loss of her young son, who died due to a debilitating disease and the failure of the medical world. She blames God the injustice she has endured. His decision who would live and who would die is so unfair! Roaming in this labyrinth her memories keep coming back.
DR. CROTTET -Ω- performed by John Jaycee Cuijpers
The third rotten soul in the bottle is Dr. Crottet who previously worked as a doctor in a developing area in Uganda. There he found the suffering of many child soldiers in the most incredible circumstances. Later, one child came to him and gave him his personal story:
"Early on when my brothers and I were captured by the Lord's Resistance Army, they explained to us that all five brothers couldn’t serve in the LRA because we would not perform well. So they tied up my two younger brothers and invited us to watch. Then they beat them with sticks until one of them died. They told us it would give us strength to fight. My youngest brother was nine years old." Former child soldier, aged 11.
That story extremely overwhelmed Dr. Crottet and angers him very much at the same time. He couldn’t understand that this kind of situations still exist and has been allowed by God.
CHILD SOLDIERS performed by a delegation of
Children's Choir Quintessens
Some of the young children, who were captured to fight for the LRA. The Lord’s Resistance Army is a Christian rebel group which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some say they were fighting for the Ten Commandments of God.
INNER VOICES and THOUGHTS
performed by Josien Obers
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