While opera houses in many parts of the world suffered enforced closures under national lockdown rules, the New National Theatre, Tokyo mostly kept its doors open to reduced, socially-distanced audiences where possible. Sometimes, those doors had to be closed and the company adapted, either postponing productions or streaming them from an empty Opera Palace. Its casting had to be flexible too. Keen to maintain an international roster of opera stars, quarantine regulations sometimes ruled out singers from appearing. When the NNTT lost its Siegmund for the revival of Die Walküre, two Japanese tenors learnt the role at short notice – one for Act 1, one for Act 2 – to step in and save the show! Such resourcefulness has helped keep the house producing and it continues its ambitious programming into its new 2021/22 season with three new opera productions, plus three new ballet programmes.
The season opens with a once-upon-a-time fairytale – Cinderella. Not Prokofiev’s ballet, although that returns in Sir Frederick Ashton’s classic staging later in the season, but Jun Aguni’s new production of Rossini’s popular opera La Cenerentola. Its plot varies a little from the traditional story – there is no pumpkin, no glass slippers (a pair of bracelets doing the job instead) and the fairy godmother is replaced by the kindly philosopher Alidoro, our Prince Charming’s former tutor. Japanese mezzo-soprano Aya Wakizono, who sings Angelina (Cinderella), has made a name for herself in Italy, studying at the Academy of Teatro alla Scala and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Joining her are American tenor René Barbera, possessor of exciting top notes, and comic genius Alessandro Corbelli, who specialises in Rossini’s basso buffo roles.
Jens-Daniel Herzog’s staging of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg has already been seen at co-producing Salzburg Easter Festival (“a true Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and Semperoper Dresden. It was scheduled to appear in Tokyo last summer, but performances had to be suspended until this season. Wagner’s opera goes beyond comedy to explore with what it means to be human. Herzog sets it in an opera house (the Semperoper) with Hans Sachs (Thomas Johannes Mayer) as the artistic director of the theatre and Eva (Masako Hayashi) an aspiring diva. Kazushi Ono, Artistic Director of Opera at NNTT, conducts Wagner’s expansive score.
The third new opera production is Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, directed by dancer and choreographer Saburo Teshigawara and conducted by Baroque specialist Masato Suzuki. Last year’s cancellation of Giulio Cesare means that Orfeo will become the first Baroque opera to be staged by the theatre.