Miki Minoru : Ai-en ~To Die for Love~

OPERA HOUSE

Sakurako/Ryurei	:	Kamahora Yuko (17,19) / Izumi Chika (18)
Ono Kiyoto	:	Idane Yasuhiko (17,19) / Akitani Naoyuki (18)
Emperor Gensyo	:	Hoshino Jun (17,19) / Imao Shigeru (18)
Empress Koki	:	Usami Ruri (17,19) / Dekita Michiko (18)
Abe no Nakamaro=Chokei	:	Tanaka Makoto (17,19) / Ono Mitsuhiko (18)
Prince Wakakusa	:	Kuroda Hiroshi (17,19) / Maiya Takehiko (18)
Kagemi	:	Miwa Yoko (17,19) / Ikeda Kaori (18)
Mouken	:	Shibayama Masanobu (17,19) / Kobayashi Yoshiki (18)
Ryusyo	:	Mine Shigeki (17,19) / Shimura Fumihiko (18)
Ryurei(Pipa Player)	:	Yang Jing (17,18,19)

February 2006	17	18	19
	Fri	Sat	Sun
3:00		X	X
6:30	X

Doors will open 45 minutes before the opening of the performance.
Approximate runnning time : 3 hours 15 minutes

Seat	SS	S	A	B	C	D	E	F	Z
Price(yen)	12,600	11,550	8,820	7,770	6,300	5,250	4,200	3,150	1,500

*A part of "Seat F" (¥3,150) : Sold at the NNTT Box Office and all Ticket Pia outlets on the performance date only. Up to 2 tickets per person. No phone reservations. *Seat Z(\1,500): Sold to students only at some Ticket Pia outlets on the day before the performance. Any tickets not sold by the performance date will be released to the general public at the NNTT Box Office and some Ticket Pia outlets. One ticket per person. No phone reservations. Students must bring a valid student ID. *Same day student tickets (50% off, except Seat F & 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.

*Opera House Ticket Prices & Seating Plan

Composer Miki Minoru, who has written seven previous operas on themes from Japanese history, concludes the series with this compelling work. The libretto, a first venture into opera by novelist Setouchi Jakucho, is a saga of the love and sorrows of a young man sent from Japan as an emissary to the imperial court of Tang China and two beautiful twin sisters, separated at birth. It is a human drama on grand scale, depicting the eternal splendor of love and the struggle to overcome the hatred born of the vagaries of fate in ways that speak to contemporary experience. The moving arias, and the music of the Chinese pipa lute that interweaves the narrative and score, create a spectacle that distills the very essence of opera. Don't miss this world premiere of this remarkable work, commissioned by the New National Theatre of Japan.

In the middle of the eighth century, the pipa player Ono Kiyoto is dispatched to the imperial court of Tang China by Empress Shomyo of Japan with an imperative to bring back the pipa melody "Ai-en" that Empress Koki of the Tang has guarded with strictest secrecy. Kiyoto departs, leaving his new bride Sakurako behind in the capital of Nara, but the ship carrying his mission to China meets with a storm and founders. Learning of this, Sakurako goes mad with grief and dies. Meanwhile, Kiyoto survives the wreck and lands on the southern coast of China, where he uses his skills at the game of Go to make his way to the Tang capital of Chang'an, where he has an audience with Emperor Gensyo and Empress Koki. There, he also meets the empress's favorite lady-in-waiting, the pipa master Ryurei. Kiyoto is startled by the striking resemblance between Ryurei and his wife Sakurako. What he cannot know is that they are actually identical twin sisters, separated soon after their birth. The emperor announces that he will award Ryurei's hand in marriage to the winner of the annual Go competition. Love blossoms between Ryurei and Kiyoto, and knowing it is a crime punishable by death, she teaches him the secret melody "Ai-en". When Kiyoto wins the Go competition, she drinks poison to atone for her crime....