'De Bakchanten' is based on Euripides's tragedy. The poet Floris Schillebeeckx and composer Sam Wauters, who graduated with this project from the cabaret department of the Herman Teirlinck Institute, adapted the original play into a modern rock opera. The structure of acts and choruses is preserved in meticulously threaded song constructions, sung dialogues between the main characters. 'De Bakchanten' is about the struggle between reason and emotion, power and belief, personified by Pentheus, King of Thebes, and Dionysus, the half-son of the supreme god, Zeus.