L'elisir d'amore, 30 June 2000

 

Presented by Showa Music University (also known as the Showa Academia Musicae)

 

New National Theatre Tokyo, The Play House

 

GOROBE Toshiro (Nemorino), MIURA Katsuji (Dulcamara), ORIE Tadamichi (Belcore), KUZUNUKI Miho (Adina), OKAYAMA Miyuki (Giannetta)

 

Showa Music University Chorus and Orchestra, HOSHIDE Yutaka (conductor), AGUNI Jun (Director)

 

 

This year the Showa Music University's annual bel canto opera was L'elisir d'amore, a revival of an opera also produced in 1990, 1995, and 1998. Similar in style to last year's La sonnambula (see review), the opera was put on with a professional conductor and soloists, most of them regulars from the Fujiwara Opera, and a large student chorus and orchestra.

 

MIURA Katsuji was an engaging Dr Dulcamara. The part fits him perfectly and it was a great pleasure to hear him in something more substantial than the innumerable comprimario roles he does at the New National Theatre and for the Fujiwara Opera. Much of his singing was beautiful, though his tone is sometimes woolly and his projection not as clean and forthright as it might be.

 

ORIE Tadamichi (Belcore) had the distinction of singing Germont to Mariella Devia's Violetta in this year's Fujiwara Traviata. The voice is really too old for Belcore, but he was stylish and carried the part with an appropriate swagger. On the evidence of his Nemorino, GOROBE Toshiro has lost what was an admirable freshness and become a rather affected singer, albeit effectively delivering 'una furtiva lacrima'.

 

On balance this year's production lacked the charm of last year's La sonnambula. The direction from the pit was ponderous rather than witty, the soprano not quite up to standard, and the young chorus appeared precocious rather than charming, indulging (or indulged) in synchronized overacting in what was anyway a generic production. The dancing was tame, and the thick make-up (so often a problem in Japan) clearly visible from the middle of the auditorium.

 

Simon Holledge