European art, Japanese obsession
Japan’s first opera house (Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo) is sold out with some tickets as high as 500 euros for the 97th Vienna State opera’s Japanes
e performance. The 100th performance will be celebrated with Fidelio conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Next to the Austrian flag in the foyer hangs an enormous photo of the Vienna State Opera that audience members line up to take photos in front of.
No other opera company has guest-performed in Japan so often. More than 300 cast and crew (including stars such as: Michael Schade, Angelika Kirchschlager, Edita Gruberova, Barbara Frittoli, Laura Tatulescu, Natale De Carolis, and conductors Seiji Ozawa and Riccardo Muti) are flown in from 60 different flights for a week of an old European art before an audience of excited opera-learned Japanese.
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