Concerts, Osaka, Kyoto…
Hi there! This week started busy. The following morning after the derniere of Pagliacci on Sunday, I headed to Frankfurt International Airport. It took 4 trains and of course one was delayed as is the norm in Germany, but I managed to get on time to take my flight to Haneda Airport in Tokyo and the to Itami Airport in Osaka. I arrived in this beautiful land safe, and really looking forward to the concerts this week. After the first 2 days of getting over the jetlag and some sleeping, we headed straight to Kyoto prefecture where we rehearsed on the afternoon of the concert, through the whole program. At 7 pm we had the concert at Kyōtamba-chō at Mizuho hall. The program had Tosti, Japanese songs, German lied and of course, Opera arias and duets. The people really enjoyed it. The concert was on Friday, on Saturday we went to Miyama- chō and walked around the little town and saw the beautiful old traditional houses, with Sakichan, Tadayoshi and Akiho. It was a warm day and at the town entrance there was a field of sunflowers that stretched along side of the road, it was just beautiful and on the other side of the road, there was a river and some people were fishing. Today Sunday we had our second and last concert, it went extremely well, we did mostly the same program but added few pieces among them a Mexican song and the whole scene Rodolfo, Mimi from Boheme with the recit, two arias and duet from the first act, also tra la la from L’elsir d’amore. The first part of the concert had the participation of an amateur choir from the region. The concert was at Sonobe City Hall, the acoustic was really nice, and it was a beautiful middle size hall.
I almost forget, we also went to a coffee house in the middle of a rural area, a wooden house covered in foliage. The inside, a mixture of European and Japanese style, there was even a chimney and a piano, the walls covered in books and in every shelf lots of small toys and little things, few paintings, old notes, one large window, there were also flowers and maybe around 5 tables in total with I believe not a single chair was the same, or at least that was my impression, and the couple who owns the place is a Germany 84 year old guy and his wife who is 67. They were really sweet and we spoke with them and enjoyed their good coffee and delicious home-made food that they offer. They came to the concert Today and were really happy, also Akiho’s family came to the concert.
This week was really intense and I am still with kind of Jetlag but the concerts went well and I did my best. I really enjoy performing for Japanese people, and this time was really special because in the Festival we were part of, one of the premises is to bring music to small communities which never get this type of concert in their towns, so it is a kind of cultural labour to bring classical music to the places were people has perhaps never heard Opera singers live. Many of them told us afterwards it was the first time they listen to a classical singer. Japan like Mexico, in the rural areas Opera and Classical singing is so rare because it is not native from our countries.
I keep doing my morning pages and my daily reading, plus my exercise routine 4 times a week. I hope you are well, please take care. See you next week.
