This ground-breaking festival has provided a platform for today’s opera makers and opened up new perspectives on opera since its launch. Alongside three brand-new productions, there are events at locations throughout the city. It’s a great chance to experience the genre as well as venues like the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ and Frascati.
The Netherlands has a strong LGBTQ+ history. Did you know that the world’s first gay rights organisation was founded in Amsterdam in 1946? The Roze Filmdagen festival celebrates the best of LGBTQ+ cinema, storytelling, documentaries and short films. Now in its 29th edition, this year’s opening film is Harry Lighton’s Pillion, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling.
The Netherlands Bach Society is one of the world’s most renowned baroque orchestras and choirs, and their annual performance of Bach’s choral masterpiece is rightly regarded a highlight of the passion season. A series of performances takes place in Naarden’s imposing Grote Kerk, and the Bach Society also travels to concert halls throughout the country. With a different guest conductor each year, no production is the same; this year it’s the turn of Japanese master Masaaki Suzuki.
Annually celebrating the union of two creative disciplines, film and dance, Cinedans features short films, documentaries and features. The festival’s focus is as ever on bold, daring and beautiful works centring on the human body as a conveyor of art and emotion.
Visiting a performance by the Dutch National Ballet should be on every Amsterdammer’s cultural to-do list, and this production of Marius Pepita’s 19th-century ballet would make a great initiation. With a revised libretto and a new storyline, the performance re-examines the historical context and ditches the orientalist perspective and idealised, exoticised presentation of the original version (Pepita had never visited India when he wrote La Bayadère).
Unexpected Theatre host this long-running and popular improv session, which sees a cast of professional improvisers take to the stage with zero knowledge of what and who with they are going to perform. The shows are in English.
This large-scale event features wine tastings, workshops, presentations, food and entertainment including quizzes and even competitive grape stomping.
A fun day out with the family plus a perfect chance to explore the historic grounds of this glorious 17th-century canal house. The ideal background for an exhilarating Easter egg hunt! Plenty of other activities such as crafting and drawing are also on offer.
Willet-Holthuysen House, 4-6 April
The Easter edition of the much-loved Sunday Market. Celebrate all things spring at the, where designers, artists and other creatives sell interior accessories, art, fashion and design items directly to the public. A great event for socializing and shopping plus there’s live music and plenty of food and drink.
Enjoy Peter Wright’s much-lauded production of this quintessential Romantic ballet by London’s Royal Ballet and Opera on the big screen.
The Netherlands’s annual flower parades (bloemencorsos) are a deeply traditional and yet completely eccentric event that every international resident should witness at least once. Floats fantastically (and painstakingly) decorated with millions of flowers are paraded through the streets and villages of the country’s ‘flower strip’ region, with dedicated clubs and communities preparing for the event months in advance.
Experiencing the city’s rich cultural scene doesn’t always have to cost a lot. Amsterdam’s Conservatory hosts free concerts and other events almost daily from piano recitals to woodwind workshops.
Get inspired! Around 100 galleries from the Netherlands and beyond present and impressive selection of contemporary fine arts, photography, post-war art, current and vintage design and specialist art books.
The Nieuwe Kerk presents an exhibition dedicated to the multifaceted and turbulent history of Jewish life in the city – from the 16th century when Jewish refugees first arrived in the city to today’s diverse community.
Curated by the Amsterdam Museum on occasion of the city’s 750th anniversary, this multimedia experience features a gigantic 200-square-metre model of Amsterdam, where the city’s past, present and future come to life with projections, animations and a powerful sound system.
‘All things change, but nothing dies.’ The Rijksmuseum’s major new spring exhibition Metamorphoses shows how artists were inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s two-thousand-year-old poem about shape-shifting gods, humans and animals. The exhibition includes works by Titian, Caravaggio, Correggio, Rodin, Brancusi, Magritte and Bourgeois, as well as contemporary photography and video art.
Rijksmuseum, until 25 May
Photographer Isabella Rozendaal’s pet portraits have been published as a much-loved series in Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool for years. This mini exhibition in the Green Salon of the Museum of the Canals presents some of her most striking works.
Whether you’re new to the Amsterdam Area or have been living here for years, our newsletter is designed to help internationals make the most of life in this vibrant region.
✔ Events and activities in English
✔ Invitations to free info sessions and workshops
✔ News affecting international residents
✔ Tips for relocating and navigating daily life in the Netherlands
