Since 2016 collaborations with Bergen National Opera and the Norwegian National Ballet have given the opportunity for unique commissions of chamber opera/ballet projects for the great hall of Herregården – in 2018 of Handel’s La Lucrezia and in 2019 Alessandro Scarlatti’s Orfeo, both directed by the Berlin choreographer Andreas Heise.

Swedish mezzo Ebba Rydh portrayed Lucretia in three contrasting settings culminating with Handel: a first performance of Gisle Kvendokk’s cantata based on Shakespeare’s sonnet moving imperceptibly into the Flower scene from Britten’s Rape of Lucretia led to Handel’s veritable operatic scene.

In 2019 Bergen National Opera artist-in-residence Beata Mordal joined dancers once again from the Ballet in Oslo together with four very talented young boys from Larvik’s Studio Nille in Heise’s striking ‘reverse’ telling of Orfeo’s lament, with the soprano as Orpheus.