After Thomas Verstraeten swapped the locations of two Ghent facades in a festive parade, he will place them on stage as the backdrop for a new performance. He invites the city’s residents to bring the facades to life through sound. From hurdy-gurdies and homemade instruments to a DJ booth: a diverse group of people and instruments forms the newly assembled city orchestra that takes on the challenge.

What music do they associate with which types of facades? What echoes behind the façade? The musicians draw inspiration from their own experiences and from stories of the past and present, but also from the opera repertoire: during the period when many ‘historic’ facades in the city center took their final form, Flemish composers wrote operas set against the backdrop of those very same facades. An urban opera is taking shape—created for, by, and with the people of Ghent.