2007/2008 Season Opera
[New Production]

Yamada Kosaku :THE BLACK SHIPS -YOAKE

OPERA HOUSE

Okichi	:	Kamahora Yuko (22, 24)	Koshigoe Mami(23)
Omatsu	:	Aoyama Keiko (22, 24)	Amo Akie (23)
Neisan	:	Nagata Naomi (22, 24)	Sakamoto Akemi (23)
Yoshida	:	Hoshino Jun (22, 24)	Kuroda Hiroshi (23)
American Consul	:	Murakami Toshiaki (22, 24)	Higuchi Tatsuya (23)
Chief Secretary	:	Ichikawa Kazuhiko (22, 24)	Kondo Masanobu (23)
Isa Shinjiro	:	Oshima Ikuo (22, 24)	Katsube Futoru (23)
Town Magistrate	:	Tani Tomohiro (22, 24)	Okubo Mitsuya (23)
Vagrant Samurai / Fisherman I	:	Tsuchizaki Joe (22, 24)	Shida Takehiro (23)
Vagrant Samurai / Fisherman II	:	Aoyama Takashi (22, 24)	Otsuka Hiroaki (23)
Feudal Official I	:	Kuraishi Makoto (22, 23, 24)
Feudal Official II	:	Harada Kei (22, 23, 24)
Vocal of prolog / Boat-song	:	Fukui Kei (22, 24)	<TBA>
Chorus	:	New National Theatre Chorus
Orchestra	:	Tokyo Symphony Orchestra

February 2008	22	23	24
	Fri	Sat	Sun
2:00		X	X
6:30	X

Doors will open 45 minutes before the opening of the performance.

	S	A	B	C	D	Z
Price(yen)	15,750	12,600	8,400	6,300	3,150	1,500

The first Japanese opera. The composer, Yamada Kosaku, is widely known for his songwriting—examples include the children’s song “Akatombo” (Red Dragonfly) and the popular song “Karatachi no hana” (Orange Blossom)—which made skillful use of the unique rhythms and intonation of the Japanese language. However, Yamada also left an important mark on the history of Western-style classical music in Japan, writing Japan’s first symphony and other works that won him worldwide acclaim and working internationally as a conductor. When this work, based on the story of Tojin Okichi, a geisha caught up in the turmoil that swept Japan in the waning years of the Tokugawa shogunate, was finally given full-scale operatic performance in Japan it was not only the realization of a long-cherished ambition of Yamada’s; it was truly the dawn of Japanese opera.

The time is the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate; the place, the port of Shimoda, newly opened by the United States–Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity. The vagrant samurai Yoshida, an imperial loyalist, bursts into a drinking party of the town magistrate and officials, makes an impassioned speech calling on them to “expel the barbarians,” and disappears, but the geisha Okichi, who happens to be present, is given the mission of assassinating the American consul-general. She becomes the consul’s mistress, but is torn between her growing feelings for his kindness toward her and her duty to kill him. Losing patience with all this, Yoshida steals into the temple Ryusenji that serves as the consulate, and draws his sword. He is on the verge of killing the consul when a messenger arrives from Kyoto conveying the Emperor’s desire for peace. Suddenly awakened to his wrongs, Yoshida commits seppuku on the spot. The consul joins his hands in prayer, and the bell of the temple and an artillery salute from the black ships join in a chorus for peace.