Dutch female-fronted symphonic metallers WITHIN TEMPTATION have issued the following update:

"A few months ago we announced a new tour for the Dutch theaters. Slowly we started to reveal some of the details about what you can expect. Tomorrow is premiere night… time to fit the puzzle together by giving you some last details about the show. Don’t worry there is much more that we didn’t told you yet .

Within Temptation’s theater tour 2012 is called: Sanctuary.

When you visit a theater, you can always sense a sort of magic – there’s a very special feeling floating in the air, something out of the ordinary. Maybe it’s the history of the building you’re in, or imagining all the different shows that took place there, and the visitors who felt the joy, the tension and the mystery of what they were about to see.

Whether we go to the theater as visitors or perform there ourselves, with Within Temptation we always have that special feeling. This is why every few years we work hard to create a new show to perform in the theaters. Another reason - in addition to the magical and intimate ambiance the theaters offer - is that this is also the perfect environment to experiment creatively with our music and our show. This gives us the unique opportunity to approach and do things differently than we would on a ‘normal’ stage. This is most definitely the case for our new 2012 theater show.

A lot of things you’ll see in our show will be new and quite different from what you’ve seen from us before.

When selecting and listening to our songs we noticed how well they fit together and how much they have in common, both stylistically and lyrically. More and more, we also realized that by putting these songs in a certain order we were actually creating a story. As the visuals and movies we use during our shows have become a bigger and bigger part of our shows, this new story gave us the perfect opportunity to create new film material. This not only shows the story line visually, but supports the musical story as well.

So this is how our film crew ended up in Scotland, in the Highlands - a landscape so beautiful that reality and fantasy seem to go hand in hand.

The perfect background to this story... Scotland. The Highlands, 1895. A young boy, sick, is lying in his bed. He has been there for days now, infected by an unknown virus causing a dangerous fever. As the fever gets stronger, his consciousness fades away, further and further from reality. He slips away into a dream world. He is a grown man now; a warrior or Holy man of some kind; strong and determined. Traveling the landscape, which is enchantingly familiar, yet surreal and unknown. Now and then, when the fever stabilizes for a short while, the real world shines through. Sometimes in forms and shapes that fit his dream world -his mother, the doctor, the local priest… they all try to help him but seem powerless to do so.

Though tempting, he is not quite ready to stay in this sanctuary, not ready to say goodbye… and so he travels on and on… searching for a way out.

We hope to see you during our Sanctuary tour."

Within Temptation's Dutch acoustic dates:

March

2 - Almere, Netherlands - Schouwburg Almere
7 - Utrecht, Netherlands - Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn
11 - Eindhoven, Netherlands - Muziekgebouw
12 - Eindhoven, Netherlands - Muziekgebouw
14 - Zwolle, Netherlands - Theater de Spiegel
17 - Tilburg, Netherlands - Theaters Tilburg
20 - Breda, Netherlands - Chassé Theater
22 - Heerlen, Netherlands - Theater Heerlen
24 - Groningen, Netherlands - De Oosterpoort
26 - Roosendaal, Netherlands - Schouwburg de Kring
29 - Enschede, Netherlands - Stadsschouwburg
31 - Nijmegen, Netherlands - De Vereeniging

April

5 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Nieuwe Luxor Theater
14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Koninklijk Theater Carré

A tour trailer can be seen below: