13 november 2025
In Memoriam Roberta Alexander
March 3, 1949 – October, 14th 2025
We got to know each other because I asked you to be one of the main characters in a documentary about older opera singers and their changing voices. Even during our first meeting in 2023, I had that warm feeling you sometimes get with someone you hardly know. Your generous smile, your humour and your openness immediately won me over. And, oh, how happy I was when you said yes and agreed to be filmed for a few years.
Together with Charlotte Swart-Margiono, Doris Soffel and Sandrine Piau, you show in the documentary how you relate to the changes that come with ageing. And how, with humour, resilience and passion for music, you are an example to others.
We were still editing the film when we received the news of your sudden passing. It was a tremendous shock and it is still difficult to comprehend. Every day in the editing room, I look at you and you are simply there. Just as I know you. With your smile, your wonderful singing and your drive.
Tomorrow, 14th November, we were going to watch the film (in progress) together. ‘I’m ALREADY looking forward to it,’ you wrote to me when we made the appointment in September.
Unfortunately, we won’t be watching together, and you won’t be able to see the end result yourself. The warm feeling has never gone away. I look back on our collaboration with great pleasure.
Despite the enormous loss, I take comfort in the thought that we have immortalised your final years of glory and that the documentary is not only an intimate portrait of four wonderful singers, but also a tribute to you.
The film will be broadcast in the course of 2026 on Het Uur van de Wolf, NTR.
May 2025
Almost!
We have almost finished shooting for the documentary about older female opera singers and their changing singing voices. We followed and have been following for the past year about four internationally acclaimed opera singers between the ages of 60 and 76. We look back on their glorious past and experience how these singers are now in their musical lives.
To be continued, as the editing period will be from September 2025 and the documentary will be broadcast in 2026 by NTR at the Hour of the Wolf. (NPO2)
Producer: 24classics
February 2020
For the series ‘Aletta’s Reis’ together with Djoeke Veeninga nominated for the Carla Atzema Soroptimist Prize 2020. The award ceremony will take place on 2 April 2020 in Pakhuis de Zwijger.
https://soroptimist.nl/nl/carla-atzema-soroptimist-prijs
November 2019
Out of Breath, the many battles of Maite Hontelé
Broadcast: November 21, 2019, 22.55 hrs, Uur van de Wolf, NPO 2
September 2019
Out of Breath, the many battles of Maite Hontelé
