Nahoko Gotoh

Dec 5, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Nahoko Gotoh

In these times of war and oppression, it must be tempting for a director to stage an opera like Rossini’s Guillaume Tell – based on Schiller’s drama about Swiss patriot Wilhelm Tell and the 14th-century struggle for independence against the Habsburgs – in a modern setting such as Ukraine or the Middle East.

Oct 23, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Nahoko Gotoh

Unlike some major instrumental competitions which guarantee a string of concerts and even recording opportunities for their winners, conducting competitions don’t always come with immediate glory. Some offer a few concerts, some offer assistant conductorships with the host orchestra, but as Tadaaki Otaka, the Chairperson of the panel of judges the Tokyo International Conducting Competition 2024 said at the post-competition press conference, “the prizewinners are just at the starting line.

Oct 23, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Nahoko Gotoh

Unlike some major instrumental competitions which guarantee a string of concerts and even recording opportunities for their winners, conducting competitions don’t always come with immediate glory. Some offer a few concerts, some offer assistant conductorships with the host orchestra, but as Tadaaki Otaka, the Chairperson of the panel of judges the Tokyo International Conducting Competition 2024 said at the post-competition press conference, “the prizewinners are just at the starting line.

Oct 6, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Nahoko Gotoh

In Europe, Sebastian Weigle is largely known as an opera conductor, having built his reputation as music director of Oper Frankfurt for many years. But to Japanese audiences he is more familiar in symphonic repertoire, having led the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra as Principal Conductor since April 2019, establishing a strong relationship.

Oct 6, 2024 | bachtrack.com | Nahoko Gotoh

This October, New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT)’s opera season opens with back-to-back new productions of early Romantic Italian operas: Vincenzo Bellini’s dreamy sleepwalker La sonnambula and Giacchino Rossini’s heroic final opera William Tell (in the original French version, Guillaume Tell). Both works have never been performed in this opera house, which opened in 1997, and in addition, La sonnambula will be the first Bellini work to be staged at the NNTT.