Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe (b. 1995, Eine) is a performer, self-taught countertenor and director working across theatre, music, dance and the visual arts.

His practice engages with various performance traditions, most notably opera and ballet, while searching for new forms of collectivity within them. In this ongoing exploration, past and future meet in temporary, boundless communities. Monteverdi is sung collectively around a prehistoric fire, or a group of aliens excavates repertoire from the past. Meirhaeghe’s performances are retro-futuristic happenings in which utopia is not kept at an unattainable distance, but manifests itself in the here and now: intimate and vulnerable, within a large-scale theatrical space.

For Meirhaeghe, theatre is an echo chamber, an instrument for travelling through time. Within it, the performer appears as an archaeologist from the future, uncovering new meanings among the ruins of the past. His work moves between nostalgia and a longing for the future, questioning how we relate to heritage and the canon. What remains, and what disappears?

"THE FUTURE IS FERTILE!” - A Revue
Meirhaeghe’s performances unfold as contemporary rituals: collective situations in which bodies, voices and images generate new symbols. Just as the cave paintings of Lascaux were once an early attempt to understand and represent the world, Meirhaeghe creates symbols for people today, guided by the belief that our society needs shared meaning. Within these temporary constellations, performers and audiences build a different way of communicating together. They enter a possible world and rehearse a future there, not by describing it, but by embodying it collectively.

“DON’T STAY THERE.”
- Madrigals
Hierarchies between disciplines and performers do not apply here. Singers move; dancers sing. Technical and aesthetic codes are broken open. By working with performers from a wide range of backgrounds and practices, Meirhaeghe questions prevailing norms surrounding virtuosity, training and intimacy. His own position as a self-taught countertenor forms part of this artistic and political stance.

Finally, Meirhaeghe’s work is characterised by a strong visual signature, in which light, scenography, visual art, smoke and objects appear as actors in their own right. His performances resemble living installations: sensory, layered and intent on reimagining what theatre can be. Those who encounter either the work, or Meirhaeghe himself recognise the same movement: a continual shift between the monumental and the tender.

 “DESTROY THE BODY!” - Spectacles
At Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, he created A Revue in 2020, a retro-futuristic queer cabaret in which aliens excavate the lost artefacts of opera. This visually stunning production was selected for the 2021 TheaterFestival.

The ritual concert Spectacles followed in 2021, both as a performance and an album, bringing together relentless beats, melting love songs, Meirhaeghe’s fragile countertenor voice, and influences from jazz and gospel. Together with producer Laurens Mariën and dancer Hanako Hayakawa, he transformed the concert into a theatrical experience.

‍Madrigals premiered in early 2022. Meirhaeghe reshaped Claudio Monteverdi’s Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi—vibrant vocal works about war and love—into a call for freedom driven by militancy and passion, interweaving them with the experimental pop of Jesse Kanda.

Since 2022, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe has shared the artistic leadership of Toneelhuis with Lisaboa Houbrechts, Görges Ocloo, FC Bergman and Olympique Dramatique.

His first creation for Toneelhuis was Ode to a Love Lost (2023). The production draws on Meirhaeghe’s own personal love story and unfolds within the deep crater of a heart.

In the autumn of 2023, Meirhaeghe was invited by the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to create his own overwhelming variation on the creation myth: Death Drive.

In early 2024, he created Shelly Shonk Fiffit at Toneelhuis, centred on a replica of the James Webb Space Telescope, the music of Caterina Barbieri and painterly movement.

Together with composer and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson and violinist Elisabeth Klinck, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe forms the band Isabelle Lewis. They released their debut album, Greetings, in October 2024.

Also in 2024, Johan Simons invited Meirhaeghe to direct a guest production at Schauspielhaus Bochum. Give Up, Old Ghosts! brought together performers from different generations and backgrounds, with Mozart’s Requiem at its centre.

In the spring of 2025, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe created Mantike at Toneelhuis: a visually driven monologue written by Louise Van den Eede and performed by Marjan De Schutter, exploring the art of divination in the face of an approaching apocalypse.

The 2025–2026 season featured no fewer than three scheduled premieres, each taking a work of classical music as its point of departure.

Together with composer Wouter Deltour, Meirhaeghe created Chapters of Celebration at DE SINGEL, a music and dance performance centred on one of the oldest themes in European music: La Folia.

Set to new, propulsive music by Lander Gyselinck, Meirhaeghe’s a rite of spring paid tribute to the iconic Le Sacre du printemps, reframing it as a radical account of the sacrifices demanded of women today.

The season was due to conclude with a Toneelhuis remake of Give Up, Old Ghosts!, featuring Mozart’s unfinished Requiem and choreography by Fumiyo Ikeda. The premiere had to be postponed following an injury.

In Airs to Ash, which premieres in the summer of 2027, Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe subjects his beloved art form, opera, to rigorous scrutiny. After more than four hundred years, what relevance does opera still hold? Is the genre still viable? Airs to Ash brings together three countertenors and three performers in a collage of scenes exploring the voice.‍
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