New in my collection : program books from Glasgow and Hamburg

I have recently two program books for contemporary operas :

- Toshio Hosokawa : Stilles Meer, Hamburg, January 24, 2016 ;
- Stuart MacRae : The Devil Inside, Glasgow, January 23, 2016.

Both are 56 pages books. The first is entirely in German. It contains :

- synopsis of the opera ;
- an introduction to the opera, by the composer Toshio Hosokawa ;
- an article on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, by stage director Oriza Hirata ;
- Nirgendwo ein Feind in Sicht (Nowhere an enemy in sight) by Janina Zell ;
- an interview with Oriza Hirata ;
- an interview with composer Toshio Hosokawa ;
- an article on the original Noh play, Sumidagawa, by Heinz-Dieter Reese ;
- an excerpt  of a novel by Ogai Mori ;
- Schönheit der Vergänglichkeit (Beauty of Impermanence) by the Dalai Lama ;
- several black & white headshots of victims of the 2011 tsunami by Denis Rouvre (taken from the Low Tide exhibition at the State Opera) ;
- complete libretto in German ;
- several colour pictures of the piano dress rehearsal on January 13.

A separate 4 pages booklet contains the complete cast and crew for the first performace. There is no biography of any kind.

The second is entirely in English. It contains :

- the complete cast ;
- the synopsis of the opera ;
- biographies of composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh ;
- an article on the opera by music critic David Kettle ;
- Stevenson in the South Seas, by Edwin Moore ;
- the complete libretto in English ;
- biographies of the artists, with black and white headshots.

By following this link to flickr, you have access to the covers of all 393 program books for contemporary opera I have in my collection.

Today : world première of Toshio Hosokawa's 'Stilles Meer' in Hamburg

Today, the Staatsoper Hamburg presents the world première performance of Toshio Hosokawa's new opera, Stilles Meer, with a libretto by Hannah Dübgen after an original text by Oriza Hirata based on the Noh play Sumidagawa and translated into German by Dorothea Gasztner. The same play was adapted by William Plomer for Benjamin Britten's first church parable Curlew River in 1964.

It is Hosokawa's fifth opera, after Vision of Lear (1998), Hanjo (2004), Matsukaze (2010) and The Raven (2012).

A hill with a wide view over the ocean. Claudia spents most of her time standing there since her husband Takashi and her son Max died in the tsunami. For every dead soul there is a lantern on the sea. Claudia's former boyfriend and father to her son implores her to look at the reality. But the reality is that the evacuation following the tsunami prevented the victim's bodies to be recovered. A ritual allows Claudia to see her child's soul, but she cannot let it go. The image fades away in her arms. (freely translated from the Staatsoper website).

The cast includes soprano Susanne Elmark (Claudia), mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura (Haruko), countertenor Bejun Mehta (Stephan), tenor Viktor Rud (Hiroto) and baritone Marek Gasztecki (A Fisherman). Kent Nagano conducts the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg and the Vokalsolisten Hamburg. Oriza Hirata directs.

The orchestra is the following (according to the publisher's website, Schott Music, Tokyo) :

- 2 flutes (doubling piccolo and alto flute), 2 oboes (doubling English Horn), 2 clarinets (doubling bass clarinet), 1 bassoon, 1 contrabassoon ;
- 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba ;
- 4 percussions ,
- harp, celesta and strings.

The performance should last about 90 minutes. The first performance will be broadcast live by NDR Kultur.