Opera japonica/Hiroshi Oga

Hiroshi Oga

Hiroshi Oga has been involved in Japanese opera for the past 40 years, commissioning and producing many new works by Japanese composers. Since 1980 he has been the General Director of the Nihon Opera Kyokai (in English the Japan Opera Association). He is also Managing Director of the Japan Opera Foundation.
: Simon Holledge interviewed him in Tokyo on December 21st. Yasuhiro Miura, an English-speaking tenor soloist with the Nihon Opera Kyokai, interpreted. Some annotations are provided in [square] brackets.

Simon Holledge: What are the origins of Japanese opera?

Hiroshi OGA: Western civilization was introduced to Japan during the Meiji period [1868-1912]. Music, in particular, was introduced as an academic subject taught in schools. Of course western music is well programmed as a theoretical subject, so it was very suitable for formal study.

European folksongs appealed to the Japanese because the form was easy to understand. It was like the pentatonic scale used in traditional Japanese music. The Japanese adopted the melodies of European songs and set new words to them.

The first important composer was Rentaro Taki, who went to Germany. In 1900 he wrote a famous song called Kojo no tsuki ['Moon over the old castle'], notable for its success in fusing words and music into a single work of art. He died at the age of only 26, of tuberculosis. [The Nihon Opera Kyokai will be giving the Tokyo premiere of a new opera by Kazuko Hara entitled TAKI Rentaro (his name in Japanese style) on April 7 and 8].

About ten years later Kosaku Yamada went to Germany. He had the idea of uniting German and traditional Japanese music, of creating a modern national school of Japanese music. At that time Wagner had great influence here, as shown by the fact that the Japan Wagner Society was founded during the early 1900s. Up to the war the most important Japanese opera was Yamada's Kurofune [The Black Ships] premiered in 1940.

After the war a student of Yamada's called Ikuma Dan wrote an opera called Yuzuru which was performed in 1952. The popularity of this opera led to many other operas being composed. However in 1951, Yoshiro Irino introduced serial music to Japan which involved singers in difficult technical problems. . . the trend now seems to be to go back to the late Romantic which is easier for singers.

Hiroshi Oga with Michiko Sunahara in
Yuki-onna Fudoki, 26-27 October 1966

Holledge: What relationship is there between Japanese opera and Kabuki? Does Japanese Opera try to modernize or popularize kabuki?

OGA: When Yamada wrote Kurofune [The Black Ships] he said "This is our interpretation of Kabuki, in future people will see that it is in the tradition of the Kabuki stage."

So there is a great influence from Kabuki, No, Kyogen and Joruri on our drama, but the overwhelming musical influence is from Europe.

Japanese is very different from European languages. Japanese has high and low accents/intonation instead of strong and weak stresses. Consonants and vowels come together, and most words end in vowels. Each syllable is of approximately the same length. This means that it is difficult to set Japanese texts to European operatic music.

In recent years two kinds of Japanese opera have been created: those that draw on traditional theatre, usually with western-style music, such as Kurozuka (No theatre) and those that use new subject matter such as Yuzuru and Shinigami. Of course there are a large number of subjects readily available from the world of traditional theatre.

Japanese have a high level of intellectual appreciation of theatre but the music should not be too difficult, otherwise Japanese opera will not be popular.

Holledge: Has it been necessary to invent a new style of singing for Japanese opera? How far has it been possible to use the style of European opera singing derived from Mozart etc. to perform texts from a non-European cultural tradition, in a non-European language ?

OGA: In traditional Japanese theatre only chest voice is used. In No and Kyogen the voice is not used above the passaggio. Performances often used to be outside in the open air. Singers trained their voices from childhood and developed powerful voices . . . but we can't use this kind of singing in auditoria with large numbers of people and no microphones. We need to develop a new kind of Japanese singing . . . with bel canto as the base.

Holledge: Is the audience for Japanese Opera the same as or different from that for Italian or German opera?

OGA: The same. The audience for Japanese opera is a subset of the audience for opera which a subset of the audience for classical music. People who like Japanese opera usually like western opera and classical music as well. However the reverse doesn't apply. A lot of people who like classical music don't like any kind of opera.

The first opera performance in Japan [in 1903] was at the Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku [Tokyo University of Fine Arts], then called the Ueno Music University. It was of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice. Actually the government wanted to stop the performance because men and women were appearing on the stage together! At that time boys and girls were not even supposed to be sitting next to each other in the audience!

Going back to the first half of the century, opera was not accepted as an art form. Symphonic and orchestral music was thought more important. In 1951 a professor at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts called Tamotsu Kinoshita surprised many people when he sang Canio in a production of I Pagliacci. After that there was more acceptance . . .

In Tokyo we now have a lot of orchestras, we have music colleges with many students, however classical music is still associated with education rather than entertainment. We need to change that.

Holledge: As far as I know, Japan has produced most of its foreign opera in the original language. This is in marked contrast to the practice in Europe where until recently most foreign opera was done in the vernacular. Has this been a factor in encouraging the development of Japanese opera?

OGA: The movement to present opera in the original language has been a recent one even in Japan. At first operas were invariably done in Japanese. However it was difficult to translate and adapt them because of the nature of the Japanese language and ridiculous translations put people off. Now there is greater appreciation of the beauty of the original language which is why we also want to present operas in Japanese.

Holledge: Again, as far as I can tell, all musicals here (foreign or otherwise) are performed here in Japanese. What is the relationship between Japanese opera and the popular theatre? Is Japanese opera the art/intellectual end of the spectrum? Does Japanese opera appeal to those who have outgrown Japanese musicals?

OGA: People go to musicals to see spectacular sets and, to see action and dance. Music comes second, and in Japanese opera the drama is very important. . .

Singing in musicals is much easier than opera because the range is smaller. In the musicals a chest voice is used, similar to that in our traditional music. We can't accept that in opera. So there is a definite difference between the Japanese musical and Japanese opera.

Having said that, I do think that opera should be entertaining, we need to remember to make it enjoyable for the audience, while at the same time developing our art. And we have to keep this in perspective. We only put on a few days of opera each year whereas a company doing musicals, like Shiki for instance that are doing 'Lion King', perform continuously throughout the year.

Holledge: If an opera-loving foreigner wanted to start listening to Japanese opera, which operas should he pick? Are there translated libretti available?

OGA: I'd recommend Shunkinsho and Ada - An Actor's Revenge by Minoru Miki. There is a video and recording available of the former. The latter was set to an English text and first performed in London. Also Kazuko Hara's Yosakoi Bushi. There is an English text available for this and there is a laser disk. I'd also recommend Shuko Mizuno's Tenshu Monogatari and Kurotsuka by Yutaka Makino. [See list of recordings, in the archives.]

Among the operas closer to European feeling are Kesa to Morito by Kan Ishii (which we performed in Poland), Ikuma Dan's famous Yuzuru [Twilight Heron] and Kazuko Hara's 'Iwai Uta ga Nagareru Yoru ni'.

Hiroshi Oga and Kuniko Nakamura in Ayame, 19-20 December 1967

Holledge: When did the Nihon Opera Kyokai start? Was it the first group to specialize in Japanese opera?

OGA: The Nihon Opera Kyokai started in 1958. It was the first group to specialize in Japanese opera and it is now the only one. In the 1960s there was another group called Sosaku Opera Kyokai which was run by a mezzo called Yoshiko Sato, a famous Carmen, but that group disappeared.

Holledge: Is it a permanent company? How many productions a year do you have? How many members does it have? Do some members also belong to other groups, e.g. the Fujiwara Opera?

OGA: It has been a permanent company since 1980 when it was taken under the umbrella of the Japan Opera Foundation. We usually do two productions a year. Membership is increasingly exclusive. Singers now have to pay to become members so they don't want to belong to lots of different groups.

Holledge: Really! May I ask how much they have to pay?

OGA: About 30,000 yen a year [about US 285 dollars].

Holledge: Is it a problem not having a permanent venue?

OGA: Western operahouses operate a 'closed' system. A group of artists belong to a house. In Japan we have an 'open' system. A producer brings a cast together for a given production. This is for economic reasons. If we operated a 'closed' system we might not survive.

Traditional Japanese theatre are very flat, in other words the stage is wide but not deep and there is little space backstage, so they aren't suitable for opera. However Japan now has three fully-equipped modern houses, in Nagoya [the Aichi Prefectural Art Theatre], in Hamamatsu, and in Tokyo at the New National Theatre. So far we don't have any established companies attached to them. The New National Theatre, for example, still lacks an orchestra. It only has a chorus.

Holledge: How is the Nihon Opera Kyokai financed?

OGA: Until 1980 I was solely responsible for the finances so it was tough. Since the Japan Opera Foundation took over the business management for us in 1980, one third of our budget has come from government, two-thirds from ticket sales. This has made things easier.

Holledge: The Nihon Opera Kyokai produce many new operas. How does that work? Do you sponsor the new works yourself? How do you decide which operas to perform?

OGA: Usually we commission new works. We choose the subject and give a text to the composer. Typically we would allocate a budget of two million yen [about US 19,000 dollars] for a score, however the New National Theatre has paid five times that . . .

Holledge: Do you publish recordings or videos?

OGA: We record and make videos of all our performances. We don't publish them, though if we were approached by a commercial organization we'd certainly consider it.

Hiroshi Oga in Tenshu Monogatari,
14-15 May 1987

Holledge: You are a singer yourself?

OGA: Yes, I am a baritone. I'm 70 now but last year I gave a recital of Japanese songs. I sang in the Japanese premieres of Bernstein's 'Trouble in Tahiti' [1961], also Dvorak's Rusalka [1959], Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor [1959] Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street [1960] and Rolf Liebermann's Die Schule der Frauen [1961], and of course many Japanese operas.

Holledge: What led you to be involved with Japanese opera?

OGA: After performing western opera, I realized the importance of bringing the drama to the audience by doing opera in Japanese. My ambition has been to create a national opera using the national language, with drama expressed through Japanese body language.

Holledge: Which of your personal achievements do you value the highest?

OGA: During the past 40 years, the Nihon Opera Kyokai has premiered 28 new operas, including notable successes such as Shunkinsho and Tenshu Monogatari. Many people now recognize the importance of Japanese opera. Gradually we have been creating a style for singing Japanese opera. I am proud of this.

Holledge: Thank you.

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Opera japonica 29/12/99