Silence

PLAYHOUSE

	S	A	B	C	Z
Price(yen)	9,450	7,350	5,250	3,150	1,500

*Seat Z(¥1,500): Sold at the NNTT Box Office and some Ticket Pia outlets on the performance date. One ticket per person. No phone reservations. *Same day student tickets (50% off, except Seat Z ): Sold at the NNTT Box Office and some Ticket Pia outlets on the performance date. One ticket per person. No phone reservations. Students must bring a valid student ID.

As one of its exchange projects for local promoters of contemporary performing arts, the New National Theatre Tokyo has invited The College Opera House, which has been much praised for the high quality of its performances based in Osaka. The College Opera House’s 118 staff members will participate in performing the great opera Silence, which was premiered in 1993 and first performed in 1995, based on a partially revised version. Presented by the NNTT in 1999, the first performance in Kansai of the opera was by the College Opera House in 2003. This production received the Grand Prize of the 2003 Osaka Cultural Festival Awards and the Critique Club Award for its dignified stage design and direction, as well as for its beautiful rendering of the Japanese language, and the NNTT has confidence in this production. Look forward to Silence, which leaves a fresh impression on the audience and enhances its value every time it is performed.

In the early 17th century, when the oppression of Christians reached its height in Japan, the young missionary Rodrigo secretly came to Nagasaki. Poor believers in the village are arrested before his eyes and die after gruesome torture, but he cannot help them nor does God lend a helping hand. Soon he himself is arrested, and his mentor urges him to abandon his belief in Christianity to rescue the believers. Rodrigo frantically prays to God, who remains silent. In despair, he stands before a fumie, a plate with a crucifix to be trodden on to prove oneself a non-Christian.