Wagner Rewrite

Interlude — Thu, 20 May 2010 22:00:58 +0000

Every spring in Ueno, the cherry blossom starts to bloom, heralding the music festival fittingly entitled “Spring Festival In Tokyo”. This year the festival took place between March 14th and April 10th.

One of the highlights of this year’s festival was Wagner’s Opera “Parsifal”. The five hour piece was performed as a concert rather than its traditional stage setting. This unusual production captured everyone’s attention and proved to be a big hit of the festival.

The NHK Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Ulf Schirmer, the renowned German Conductor who performed alongside well-known Wagner singers such as Burkhard Fritz(Tenor), Michaela Shuster(Soprano), Franz Grundheber(Bass-baritone) and Peter Rose(Bass) .

We interviewed Maestro Ulf Schirmer about this captivating performance.

“The theme of this opera is based on Christianity, something that is not so familiar to a japanese audience so I suggested that the singers shouldn’t be on stage the whole time. Instead when it was their scene, they should take their positions on the stage and as the scene changed, they should leave. This helped the audience to take the story in and understand it through the changes in the music.

Actually this time I came to Japan with my family. My son (21 years old) and my daughter (20 years old) told me that they could understand the story easily and they were really impressed.

“Parsifal” was the last opera of Wagner and its theme, I think, is the “relief from the pain of anxiety”. Wagner at the time was becoming more open minded towards Christianity and was influenced by Buddhism as well. So “Parsifal” can be said to be not only religious but philosophical.

The opera was composed for Bayreuth Festival Hall which was designed by Wagner himself and has special acoustics. I tried hard to create a sound similar to that of Bayreuth by positioning the singer of the voice of the God at the upper part of the stage and separating the chorus by positioning them on either side of the stage.

As for the bell, I made the sound myself using the actual sound of the Cologne Dome together with the sounds of a Bosendorfer piano.

I have visited Japan more than 16 times and love the country. I’m looking forward to returning this October to conduct “Arabella” by R.Strauss at the Opera Palace in Tokyo.”

Mariko from ACT4

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 09:36:28 +0000

I spent the busiest days in April, since we had 4 big events in this month.

On April, 10^th, there was the festival called “Ryukyu Kaiensai” in Okinawa.

The main event was the fireworks on the Gino-wan, the western shore of Okinawa.

What is so special about the fireworks, is more than 10,000 fireworks was risen with the music for 1 hour. Fireworks with music is so unique and impressive.

Actually I chose the classic part this year and Junko Koshino, one of the well-known Japanese Fashion Designer made the image of the fireworks with the aria from “Madame Butterfly” and “Walkyure”. http://www.ryukyu-kaiensai.com/

About 40 members of “ACT4” joined the event and we had a wonderful time there.(We made the tour for the members)

“Haruno Utage” which means the party at spring night was held in Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo .

Gayo Nakagaki, 20 strings koto player together with violinist, Naoko Inoue, and the pianist,

Yoshihiro Ota performed on the stage with the very new born suites composed by Gayo Nakagaki. Ota played the Gershwin in the latter part of the concert.

On April 24^th, there was a special luncheon with the violinist, Anne-Sophie Mutter at the private club called Ark Hills Club with members of “ACT4” sponsored by Credit Swiss.

After the luncheon, we had a chance to be part of the rehearsal, and then, to the concert.

She was on the Japan Tour 2010, and the Violin Concerto by a Russian Composer, Ms. Gubaidulina was played for the first time in Japan.

The concerto was dedicated to Ms.Anne-Sophie and I found it very interesting. She told me the concerto by Ms.Gubaidulina has similarities in the music of Bach, though there is no tonality in it.

She played Bach and then the new concerto, it was a good combination, I thought.

The CD of Bach and Gubaidulina by Ms. Anne-Sopie, USCG-1404 is available.

Interlude » Mariko

Wagner Rewrite

Mariko from ACT4