Locations
For many years, Opera Zuid’s various departments were spread across four locations in Maastricht; the offices were located in a building on the Wilhelminasingel, the people from the costume atelier worked from a building (former school) in the Malpertuis district, the scenery and props were stored in a depot on the other side of town and rehearsals were held in the former Kruisherenkerk. The church and cloister of this Kruisheren complex date back to the 15th century. Today, the entire complex is used as a luxury hotel and is run by renowned hotelier Camille Oostwegel. In October 2003, rehearsals took place for the first time in the former Malpertuis church, after a small church on the Sterrenplein first served as a replacement when the Municipality of Maastricht sold the Kruisheren complex to the hotelier. In April 2004, Opera Zuid’s offices moved to the Malpertuiskerk annex and the costume workshop followed a few months later.
Malpertuis church
For the Onze Lieve Vrouw van Goed Raad church in Maastricht’s Malpertuis district, architect Jean Huysmans and artist Albert Troost worked in a unique partnership in 1966 on a wall-filling, partly figurative and partly abstract stained-glass window. The four church walls are coordinated and together form a closed whole. The altar side gives space to the creative hand, the creation of the circle of the sun (the north-east wall), today also the created birds fly into the adjacent wall of earth (south-east side). The first people take shelter there and the first drama takes place. Opposite, the wall of non-earth (north-west), with the floating symbols of the evangelists, oversized. The watching angel (south-west wall) with its wing stretched across the entire width of the wall, closes the square. Since then, there has been work on the church, repairing the many broken stained-glass windows and installing double-glazing to insulate and prevent noise pollution. The new building in the courtyard serves as a set studio and storage area.