A double bass player, silhouetted against the set, merged a listener's eye and ear.Īll of these effects are anchored in the piano, itself a crossover between percussion and those lovely bell-like top notes. The chamber orchestra is positioned cheek by jowl with the stage. One is struck by the percussive send offs of the woodwinds and violins often delicately wafting a series of top notes. While the visual is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, with the humorous exception of a Panama hat, the music is suspended in geographic space. Martial beats which start the first dream turn to jazzy syncopation and so too do stage movements. Together with rectangular pillars, easily moved to form a bench or a tower, all elements are woven together in Mimi Lien's suggestive set.ĭirection by Alec Duffy is stately, as characters always move to the rhythm of the music. We are curiously brought closer to the dream in our confused and blinded state. When the focus shifts to blinding insights or the unbearable, multiple lights shine right in the audiences’ eyes. They are invisible when a solo spot light shines on a performer. Many head lights hang at the back of the stage. The lighting by Tuce Yasak is particularly effective. Some have designs and others are a lush white which changes color with the lights' rainbow offerings in green, red and blue.
All the men wear flowing robes, many of them draped and winged.
Yet the over-arching sense is of a whole.Ĭostumes by Oana Botez are distinctly Japanese. The dreams on which each of the four very distinct sections of the opera are based have strikingly different tones. Soseki, who invented his last name which means stubborn, is so popular in Japan that he appears on a bank note. The stories are based on Natsume Soseki’s Ten Nights of Dream. A man who seeks 'nothingness' is eastern his failure to find it very much of the west. The humor of a man in a Panama Hat who pursues pigs until they get him feels very Western.
Noh drama’s emphasis on essence and not story line fuels the dreams. The flexibility taking on both roles gives him has yielded a work of exquisite sensibility. Osada composed the music and the libretto. Moto Osada’s first opera, Four Nights of Dream, like the composer, is a cross over between East and West. Production photos by Ayumi Sakamoto Courtesy the Japan Society Instrumentalists: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Chamber Orchestra Singers: Marisa Karchin, Gloria Park, Christopher Sokolowski, Makoto Winkler, Jesse Malgieri, Rocky Sellers Tall rectangles in various positions form the set for Four Nights a Dream
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