Frank Black, singer of American band The Pixies, is planning to play in a rock opera based on the life of Dutch artist and singer, Herman Brood, according to Ivo de Lange, an art dealer and friend of Brood’s. The opera is set to premiere in Houston, Texas, on 18 November and the Americans involved spent last weekend in Zwolle, Brood’s birth town, to learn all about the man.

Frank Black’s album Bluefinger of 2007 was entirely dedicated to Herman Brood, with a cover of Brood’s song ‘You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It’. I remember the evening news back in 2001 when they had announced that Brood committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. He was 54.

Here’s a film a friend of mine (more in Dutch) had the chance to shoot of Frank Black playing at Brood’s grave at the Zorgvlied graveyard in Amsterdam, singing a song about Brood for the occasion:

Read more about the Netherlands’ famous rocker.

(Link: oor.nl)