Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe (°1995 in Eine) is a self-made countertenor, opera director and performer. He wants to rewrite the rules of opera, and 'liberate classical music, because it should belong to everyone'.

Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe studied performance at the Theatre Academy in Maastricht.
For Meirhaeghe, the combination of music and theatre is evident, ever since his school project at the Toneelacademie. He found his way in opera, which is not coincidentally the medium where both art forms play together. With Opera Ballet Flanders, he created A Revue, a visually stunning spectacle somewhere between The Efteling and Star Trek. And then there was Spectacles, a performance and a record, where merciless beats, melting love songs, Meirhaeghe's fragile countertenor and jazz and gospel influences come together.

Madrigals premiered on 21 January 2022. Meirhaeghe moulds Claudio Monteverdi's Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi, effervescent vocal works about war and love, into a call for freedom fuelled by fighting spirit and passion. Thinking of the ancient Greeks, he creates a contemporary orgy in which the boundaries between the human and the divine are blurred. He dares to mix Monteverdi with the experimental pop of Jesse Kanda.

In his creations, he mixes classical music with pop and contemporary scenography in his own unique way. He often works with non-classically trained performers and turns dancers into singers, or vice versa. In doing so, he questions perfection and virtuosity. Meirhaeghe wants the theatre to be an echo chamber, a time machine in which old and new can be brought together. He is fascinated by the future, and the evolutions and revolutions that go with it. Without wanting to oppose the preservation of the existing repertoire, Meirhaeghe sees it as a challenge to combine classical fragments with new symbols and radical sounds.

In 2022 Meirhaeghe starts as a member of the artistic board of TONEELHUIS. His first production there will be Ode to A Lost Love.