Curtain set to fall on Soldaat van Oranje musical after 16 years
The longest-running Dutch musical, Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange), will stage its last performance on July 12 after almost 16 years.
The musical is based on the true story of resistance hero Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, who was a student at Leiden University when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. He went underground and fled to England, where he carried out numerous missions in the service of the Dutch monarchy in exile.
The musical plays in a rotating 1,100-seat auditorium in a converted aircraft hangar on a Dutch military base near Katwijk. The scenes include a seascape, complete with water, and an aircraft that taxis to a stop.
The musical has been staged some 4,000 times and has involved 29 different casts. Millions of people have seen the show, which premiered in October 2010.
Producer Fred Boot described the move as a “major decision”. “Soldaat has been part of my life for more than 20 years, since I first had contact with Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema,” he said. “I can’t imagine life without it.”
Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s story was earlier made into a 1977 feature film starring actor Rutger Hauer. Soldaat van Oranje, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is considered to be one of the best Dutch films ever. Roelfzema died in 2007 at the age of 90.
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