Amsterdam's 'best neighbourhood' to star in 750th celebrations

Amsterdam: Amsterdam kicks off year-long celebrations this weekend to mark its 750th anniversary with one ancient and formerly down-at-heel neighbourhood playing a starring role in the festivities.

Sitting cheek by jowl with the city's Canal Belt, the once working class Jordaan neighbourhood is the setting for a new musical which its producers said captured the essence of the Dutch capital and its residents.

"We specifically designed a musical to celebrate Amsterdam's 750th anniversary," said Marc Muller, producer at the DeLaMar Theatre where the musical "Onze Jordaan" (Our Jordaan) hit the planks to a full house on Wednesday evening.

"From October 27 the city will enter its year-long celebration and we thought a musical is an ideal way to contribute to the festivities," Muller told AFP, a few hours before the show opened to the public.

Any mention of the Jordaan in the Netherlands will immediately be greeted by a knowing smile.

For many Dutch citizens, Amsterdam is best exemplified not by its gritty and notorious red light district, but by the Jordaan.

"This is the best neighbourhood in the Netherlands," Evert Jansen told AFP during a visit.

"The best actors, the best singers, the best footballers are all from here -- (Ruud) Gullit and (Johan) Cruyff. The best comes from here," said Jordaan born-and-bred Jansen, 82, sporting a typical Amsterdam flat cap.

'Most famous neighbourhood'

Built in parallel to the Canal Belt during the so-called Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, many of its streets and canals today still carry the names of plants and flowers.

Historians say one of the possible origins of the neighbourhood's name, the Jordaan, comes from the French word "jardin", meaning garden.

Back in the 17th century many of its residents were migrants from all over Europe, working in the city's factory and harbour "all attracted by the wealth of Amsterdam," said Annemarie de Wildt, historian and former curator of the Amsterdam Museum.

The Jordaan's population grew exponentially for the next two centuries and living conditions plummeted.

But even back then, the neighbourhood became famous for its music and singing -- especially when Italian labourers brought their love of opera to the Jordaan's tiny streets.

Bel canto, a smooth operatic style of singing, was soon incorporated into the Jordaan's music tradition.

This continued into the 20th century, said De Wildt.

"Somehow... the Jordaan had a sort-of notorious culture of its own, characterised by a lot of music, theatre," she told AFP.

"People started writing novels about the Jordaan, making films about the Jordaan, a whole genre of songs started."

"In that sense I think it's one of the most famous neighbourhoods of the whole of the Netherlands," she said.

For the producers of the musical "Onze Jordaan" it was the ideal mix.

"You need several ingredients to make a musical: a good story to start with, and the Jordaan on many levels has a good story to tell," said Muller.

"You need a culture that's easy to explain to the whole of the Netherlands and very importantly, fitting music, music that people know."

"And because of this combination, we've chosen the Jordaan," he said.

'All sorts of people'

Dressed in black leather a pair of aviator sunglasses, long-haired long-time Jordaan local Michiel Hooidonk sipped an ice-cold Heineken beer as he surveyed passers-by at his local bar, the Cafe 't Monumentje).

"I've lived here for the past 20 years. I don't ever really leave the neighbourhood," the 63-year-old self-confessed "ageing rocker" told AFP.

"You can feel it. The warmth, the coziness but sometimes also the conflicts. That's why I think all sorts of people move here," added crystal shop owner Laura Adriaanse.

But many residents like Hooidonk and Jansen said the neighbourhood was changing as gentrification creeps in.

The Jordaan saw an exodus of residents in the 1960s fleeing substandard housing, leading to an influx of students and artists cashing in on cheap accommodation.

House prices have since rocketed and today the Jordaan is one of the most upmarket and expensive locations in the Netherlands.

"Earlier we had 60,000 people, real 'Jordaanese'," lamented Jansen.

"Now you only see Porsches and Land Rovers on the streets," he said.

But younger generations said they welcomed the changes.

"The population has changed, which I really like, so everything is kind of the same, but at the same time the people are changing," said Melody Musscher, 20, whose family was from the Jordaan.

"And that's really cool to see," she said.