Baar Amsterdam — 29.12

A production featuring the music of Jacques Brel

There are few places that endure on the world’s horizon: lasting places where people meet, meet again and find themselves anew. It is better when wine flows in these places, when music flows and tender words flow—words that move you to the depths of your soul.

“Baar Amsterdam” is a place and a moment where Jacques Brel’s world, with its bright sound, meets the question of all that one must live through and experience for this beauty we embrace to be born. A circle of light. A microphone. A gruff-faced master of ceremonies. “Ne me quitte pas” he sings, his soul laid bare, his face slick with the sweat of effort.

Jacques Brel’s purpose and focus was to tell stories whose core was always built on emotion. Brel made himself the direct vehicle for his work, reaching people through words and song. He let his soul resonate with everything he knew and had felt.

This production has the same aim: to take the audience on a journey to the outer reaches of the human soul, touching the corners of which we are stitched together. But it also asks: would we be stitched together at all without an artist, without a person opening up and burning, inside and out?

The production moves from the light, elevated and touching into depth and even disquiet, and does not shy away from uncomfortable questions: which dark side is inevitable, and which justification is unjustifiable?

The setting is a salon-like meeting place. Brel’s songs are theatrical in the grandest sense. Above all, wine must flow in “Baar Amsterdam”.

On stage: Jarmo Reha, Jaak Lutsoja (accordion) and Aili Nael

Writer and director: Jarmo Reha
Designers: Ulvi Tiit and Allan Appelberg
Dramaturgical assistance: Laur Kaunissaare
Song lyric translator: Indrek Koff
Sound designer: Lauri Kaldoja
Lighting designer: Sasha Mirson

Premiere: 13 December 2025 at Ekspeditsiooni stuudio Krulli majas