Midsummer Night's Dream, 4 August 2000

 

Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Tokyo

 

Cast: KAN Yumiko (Oberon), MORI Maki (Tytania), HOSHI Yoji (Lysander), NAGAI Kazuko (Hermia), KURODA Hiroshi (Demetrius), SASAKI Noriko (Helena), HASEGAWA Akira (Theseus), TAKEMOTO Setsuko (Hippolyta), MINE Shigeki ( Quince). KONDO Masanobu (Flute ). MAKIKAWA Shuichi (Snout). MATSUI, Yasushi (Starveling). TSUTSUI Shuhei (Snug). IKEDA Naoki (Bottom). AIKOU Kumi (Cobweb). KOBAYASHI Nami (Mustardseed), HARA Kumiko (Peaseblossom), ASANO Mihoko (Moth), UCHIDA Shinichiro (Puck)

 

Nikikai Chorus, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra WAKASUGI Hiroshi (conductor ), KATOU Tadashi (director) Regina Eschenberg (designer)

 

 

The Nikikai Opera performed the Japanese premiere of Midsummer Night's Dream in 1962, also presenting it in 1983, and again this August. A strong team was assembled: WAKASUGI Hiroshi, an assistant conductor at the time of the premiere, with the Tokyo Philharmonic, the director KATOU Tadashi, responsible for last year's brilliant production of Kazuko Hara's Crime and Punishment, and the Austrian designer Regina Eschenberg for the sets and costumes.

 

Lacking good available countertenors, the part of Oberon was given to a mezzo-soprano, and the fairies were also sung by women. It was decided to use English (unlike in 1962 and 1983), despite an all Japanese cast of local singers only accustomed to singing in German, Italian and very occasionally French, and with no apparent support from any native speakers. Predictably some singers struggled with the language and won, some struggled and lost. Unfortunately on the night I went, the biggest loser was the mezzo attempting the key role of Oberon.

 

Eschenberg's effective set consisted of a plain raked stage, with a stepped and tilting disk, used by the sleeping couples in the early part of the opera and by the players in the last act, and an illuminated raised semicircular pathway over the orchestra, mostly used by Oberon and Tytania and the fairies. And there was a trap door, used exclusively by Puck! Less successful was a series of giant split bamboos, portentously let down one by one at intervals, as if to remind inattentive members of the audience which scene they were watching. The costumes, especially those of the fairies were attractive and slightly comical, like a parody of a fashion show, with lots of transparent fabrics.

 

The music coming from the pit was as magical as anyone could wish for, and those singers not intimated by the language made the most of it. SASAKI Noriko was an outstanding Helena, passionate and very well sung, and well partnered by KURODA Hiroshi as Demetrius. MORI Maki coped with Tytania's coloratura beautifully. IKEDA Naoki was an amiable and effective Bottom. UCHIDA Shinichiro's seedy middle-aged Puck in a trench coat, complete with raspy Japanese-American accent was like something out of another production, however intentional it might have been. Everyone without exception moved, and danced, extraordinarily well throughout the opera.

 

Footnote: I don't wish to end with a canard, but this one was in the programme synopsis: "Bottom wakes up and rejoins his friends. They learn their play is to be acted before the Duck."

 

 

Simon Holledge