MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Music & the Arts

December 11, 2025 • 12:34 pm 0

Toshio Hosokawa’s ‘Natasha’

Hiroka Yamashita and Ilse Eerens in Toshio Hosokawa’s Natasha; photo: Rikimaru Hotta

The New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) presents Toshio Hosokawa‘s new opera Natasha, conducted by Kazushi Ono and directed by Christian Räth, via global streaming. Premiered in August 2025, the production drew wide acclaim and was named a finalist in the World Premiere category of the International Opera Awards 2025.

From Friday, 12 December 2025 at 7:00 p.m. (CET) to Friday, 12 June 2026 at 12:00 p.m. (CET), audiences can experience Natasha for free on OperaVision and NNTT Stream. Running time: Approx. 2 hours 35 minutes.

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 premiered by Ono Kazushi.

“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.

Hosokawa’s music resonates with meditative power—at once ritualistic and deeply human—evoking the cries of a wounded planet while offering a glimpse of hope.”

Creative Team
Libretto by Yoko Tawada
Composed by Toshio Hosokawa
Conductor: Kazushi Ono
Production: Christian Räth
Set Design: Christian Räth, Daniel Unger
Costume Design: Mattie Ullrich
Lighting Design: Rick Fisher
Video Design: Clemens Walter
Electronic Sound Design: Sumihisa Arima
Choreographer: Catherine Galasso
Cast
Natasha — Ilse Eerens
Arato — Hiroka Yamashita
Mephistos Enkel — Christian Miedl
Frau A — Mari Moriya
Frau B — Akiko Tomihira
Businessman A — Tang Jun Bo
Businessman B — Timothy Harris
Saxophonist — Masanori Oishi
Electric Guitarist — Gaku Yamada
Chorus Master — Kyohei Tomihira
Chorus — New National Theatre Chorus
Orchestra — Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra

Filed under: music news, new opera, Toshio Hosokawa

November 18, 2025 • 2:51 pm Comments Off on ‘The Monkey King’: Opera Now Review

‘The Monkey King’: Opera Now Review

Jusung Gabriel Park as Master Subhuti and Kang Wang as the title role in Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King; photo: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King is a very palpable hit at San Francisco Opera. The rest of the run appears to be already sold out, but a livestream of tonight’s performance at 7.30 PT will be available here starting at 7.30 pm PT ($25); the stream will also be available on demand from 23 Nov at 10am PT to 25 Nov at 10am PT.

My review for Opera Now:

Just after singing what may be the most beautiful music in The Monkey King, the opera’s irrepressible hero promptly marks his territory with a triumphant stream of urine. It’s an indelible assertion of Monkey’s contradictions – and a characteristic example of Huang Ruo’s assured pacing. His underlying musical control gives this sweeping, adventure-driven tale cohesion, navigating its comic and sublime registers with unforced confidence. The transitions are so natural they scarcely call attention to themselves. …

continue

Filed under: new opera, review, San Francisco Opera

November 14, 2025 • 9:12 am Comments Off on A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera

A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera

Huang Ruo and a Monkey King puppet at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco; Cayce Clifford

My New York Times feature on Huang Ruo and his brand-new opera “The Monkey King,” with a libretto by David Henry Hwang – opening tonight at San Francisco Opera.

Inside a cavernous rehearsal space near the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, the singer portraying the monk-like sage Subhuti was wielding a golden kung fu staff with serene precision. “Power alone is not enough” he intoned to the trickster hero of “The Monkey King,” Huang Ruo’s opera, which premieres this month at San Francisco Opera.

continue

Filed under: new opera, New York Times, San Francisco Opera

October 4, 2024 • 11:16 am Comments Off on “The Handmaid’s Tale” at San Francisco Opera

“The Handmaid’s Tale” at San Francisco Opera

Lindsay Ammann as Serena Joy (l) and Irene Roberts as Offred (r) in The Handmaid’s Tale at San Francisco Opera; photo (c) Cory Weaver

Some thoughts for Musical America on San Francisco Opera’s fall production of The Handmaid’s Tale:

SAN FRANCISCO—It was at the turn of the millennium that composer Poul Ruders and librettist Paul Bentley adapted The Handmaid’s Tale into an opera. These days, however, their version of the dystopian novel Margaret Atwood published in 1985 seems ominously closer to an opera ripped from the headlines than a cautionary tale …

continue

Filed under: Musical America, new opera, review, San Francisco Opera

September 24, 2024 • 10:39 am Comments Off on “What Belongs to You”: Garth Greenwell on the Opera Stage

“What Belongs to You”: Garth Greenwell on the Opera Stage

In the years since Garth Greenwell published his 2016 debut novel, What Belongs to You, the 46-year-old novelist, poet, critic, and teacher has established himself as one of the most distinguished American writers at work today.

Garthwell, who at one point studied voice at the Eastman School of Music, is deeply knowledgable about opera and also writes fascinating and highly worthwhile music criticism. His own work will now be the subject of literary and music criticism alike, thanks to composer David T. Little’s adaptation of What Belongs to You to the opera stage.

Little adapted his own libretto from Garthwell’s text and has collaborated with the legendary choreographer Mark Morris as stage director and conductor Alan Pierson to reframe the novel for the opera medium.

What Belongs to Me “tells the story of a man caught between longing and resentment, unable to separate desire from danger, and faced with the impossibility of understanding those he most longs to know,” says Garthwell. Adds Little: “The story is specific and personal, but the experience Greenwell describes is universal: the search for self and the desire to belong amidst loneliness and enduring heartbreak.” 

In his New York Times preview, Joshua Barone describes Little’s musical response to the material: “There are flashes of rock, but it is largely inspired by Monteverdi and Schubert, as well as John Dowland, Giovanni Valentini and Gérard Grisey, taking cues from the Renaissance through the 20th century. There is even some Britten. Little called it all ‘a constellation of influences’ shaped by the material.”

“At its most shocking, Little’s music calls on the instrumentalists of Alarm Will Sound to sing, acting as a chorus to embody the hustler Mitko and the protagonist’s father during two pivotal, terrifying moments.”

The world premiere will be performed on 26 and 28 September at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond.


Filed under: music news, new opera, ,

September 19, 2024 • 1:23 am Comments Off on New Opera by Mary D. Watkins: “Is This America?”

New Opera by Mary D. Watkins: “Is This America?”

This weekend, Mary D. Watkins‘s new opera Is This America? receives its premiere at Dorchester’s The Strand Theatre in a production presented by the activist performing arts company White Snake Projects (WSP), which was founded by Cerise Lim Jacobs. The 85-year-old Watkins has blazed the trail for other Black women composers in the field of opera.

This new, 90-minute-long, fully-staged opera celebrates the life and legacy of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and features performances by the Massachusetts-based Victory Players chamber orchestra alongside a small ensemble of singers; mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel (Met Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago) will create the lead role of Hamer. Haitian American queer woman Pascale Florestal stage directs. Tickets available here.

(Content Warning: Is This America? contains very strong, racially-loaded language, and references to violence.)

Is This America? brings to life one of the most turbulent periods in American history to tell the story of Hamer, the great Mississippi activist who galvanized the registration of Black voters in her home state despite overwhelming odds, including death threats, beatings, and rejections by her own constituency. 

The title of the work is taken from the iconic speech that Hamer made 60 years ago before the 1964 Democratic National Convention, when she petitioned the Convention to give her newly formed political party, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), seats at the Convention and to recognize the MFDP as the legitimate representative of the people of Mississippi. A year later, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices.

Is This America? is 15 years in the making. A chamber orchestra version was workshopped by the Oakland Opera Company in 2009. The first concert version was performed by the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra in Massachusetts in 2014. This WSP production marks the second Watkins premiere with the company; it commissioned her virtual opera I Am A Lifer, which is part of Death by Life (2021), the Company’s musical response to the death of George Floyd. 

“My goal is to show the dignity and strength with which Fannie Lou Hamer and her fellow civil rights workers carried themselves in spite of the terror and dehumanizing treatment they were subjected to and to convey the great spirit of love that bound them together,” says Watkins. “Their story deserves to be told in a grand way – a way befitting the souls of the people who marched in the streets in the hot sun with such determination, singing through their fears while their opponents spat upon them, beat them, kicked them, called them vile names, terrorized their families, and imprisoned them. Is This America? is my salute to these beautiful, courageous people. I chose to tell Fannie Lou Hamer’s story as an opera because I wanted to use an art form that would capture the power and sweep of her life. I wanted to give full voice to this amazing African-American female political leader.”  

Filed under: American opera, music news, new opera

September 7, 2024 • 4:39 am Comments Off on “Last Days” by Oliver Leith

“Last Days” by Oliver Leith

For Gramophone‘s September issue, I reviewed Oliver Leith’s Last Days, based on Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film riffing on Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

‘A place where flecks of magic are chipped or hacked from mundanity – where the familiar and domestic are heightened or warped’ is how Oliver Leith sums up what he wanted to convey with Last Days, his debut opera…

continue

Filed under: CD review, Gramophone, new opera

July 23, 2024 • 9:35 am Comments Off on How “Jubilee” Is Bringing Spirituals to the Opera Stage

How “Jubilee” Is Bringing Spirituals to the Opera Stage

Tazewell Thompson (photo: Jeffrey Henson Scales)

My preview of Seattle Opera’s world premiere of Jubilee, created and directed by the extraordinary Tazewell Thompson, has been posted at Opera Now. Jubilee will run on 12-26 October 2024 at McCaw Hall in Seattle.

In 1903, in his classic The Souls of Black Folk, the influential sociologist and activist W E B Du Bois famously declared that the African American spiritual ‘stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side of the seas’. Du Bois singled out a group of performers for their role in bringing widespread attention to this legacy: ‘The Fisk Jubilee Singers sang the slave songs so deeply into the world’s heart that it can never wholly forget them again’….
continue

Filed under: American artists, commissions, new opera, Seattle Opera

May 16, 2024 • 8:32 am Comments Off on “Before It All Goes Dark”

“Before It All Goes Dark”

Jake Heggie, composer of “Before It All Goes Dark,” a one-act opera based on the real-life story of an American veteran who learns he is heir to artworks looted by the Nazis. (James Niebuhr)

My Seattle Times preview of Jake Heggie’s latest stagework, a one-act chamber opera commissioned by Music of Remembrance that will be premiered this Sunday 18 May:

Jake Heggie can never predict where he will find the topic for his next opera. But the American composer has an instinct for recognizing when he has alighted on a story that will send his imagination into overdrive. ..

continue

Filed under: Jake Heggie, Music of Remembrance, new opera

May 26, 2023 • 12:06 pm Comments Off on Salvatore Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone

Salvatore Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone

Staatsoper Hamburg is presenting the world premiere production of Salvatore Sciarrino‘s 15th opera, Venere e Adone, 28 May-8 June.

Drawn from Ovid’s retelling of the myth of Venus and Adonis in Metamorphoses and Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Sciarrino’s new opera is a meditation on love and death. The cast features American countertenor Randall Scotting in the role of Adonis, who is pursued by Venus, the goddess of love, sung by soprano Layla Claire.  Staatsoper Hamburg’s General Music Director, Kent Nagano, conducts and Georges Delnon directs.

“Adonis is probably the liveliest character in the whole opera,” says Scotting. “He is youthful, boisterous, and concerned only with hunting and making love. The music Sciarrino composed for him really embodies these qualities, especially in his big hunting scene. There are aspects of the opera everyone will recognize, but it also feels new and relevant today.”

an atmospheric and inventive opera that often surrounds the audience in the nuanced sounds of the natural world.  Mimicking the cycle of life and death, sounds arise from nothing and just as quickly disappear, leaving the listener engaged, interested, and waiting on the edge of their seats for the next surprise.  ‘Adonis is probably the liveliest character in the whole opera.  He is youthful, boisterous, and concerned only with hunting and making love.  The music Sciarrino composed for him really embodies these qualities, especially in his big hunting scene.  There are aspects of the opera everyone will recognize, but it also feels new and relevant today,’ said Scotting of his role in the opera.

From the Staatsoper Hamburg site:

“Sounds from the silence. They come closer, move and dissolve into darkness. Their nature is being and non-being, coming into being and passing away – the same as all living beings in the eternal illusion of life and death. They are sounds as they surround people, a music close to nature. They tell of mythical figures: Venus and Mars, who once begat Cupid. Cupid, who is now to avenge his betrayed father. The beautiful Adonis, whose love for Venus is his undoing. And above all: the monster who knows no affection, no love, no hate, least of all himself. It waits, unknown and deadly, maltreated by the voices of the world. An ancient story winds through the thicket of mythological entanglements and finds new paths. Who will triumph, love or death?”

Filed under: music news, new opera

Archive

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.