Admin

New National Theatre Tokyo

Conductor

Kazushi Ōno

Others

New National Theatre Chorus

Orchestra

Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra

Stage director

Christian Räth

Singer

Ilse Eerens

Natasha

Hiroka Yamashita

Arato

Christian Miedl

Mephistos Enkel

German

Japanese

Ukrainian

Tokyo

Japan

New National Theatre

Opera Palace

Public

Jnanakumar P

English

Approved

This new opera work by Hosokawa Toshio is staged as the third in Artistic Director Ono's series of commissioned works from Japanese composers. Hosokawa Toshio is a leading composer of contemporary music who has created commissioned work for the world's major orchestras, musical festivals and opera houses. Natasha is the first opera by Hosokawa to be staged at the NNTT since Matsukaze in 2018, as well as his second opera to be world premiered by Ono Kazushi, the first being Hanjo, commissioned by the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, in 2004.

Reconsidering the relationship between humans and nature, Hosokawa Toshio's music is a kind of prayer or requiem. Especially after the 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, his works address humans' repetitive history of destruction, drawing particular attention to nature's fearsomeness and to the human arrogance of forgetting the awe nature deserves. Globally acclaimed author Tawada Yoko, who writes novels in both Japanese and German that examine the world from a German base and highlight themes of national borders and languages, is working on the libretto for the new work. The story focuses on an encounter between Natasha, a wandering immigrant driven out of her hometown, and a young man named Arato, as well as a Mephistopheles-like figure who shows and leads the pair through various scenes of human hells. Multilingual with Japanese, German and Ukrainian languages, the opera compares and contrasts the origins of modern civilization and humanity. The groans of the endangered earth resonate deeply throughout this opera that depicts destruction and hope with multiculturalism as the key to finding a path forward.

Natasha by Hosokawa, From (2025/2025), Directed by Christian Räth,, Conductor Kazushi Ōno, New National Theatre, Tokyo, Japan

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues