Invitation to Miki Operas

Opera (Minoru Miki's "An Actor's Revenge") returns to Old Vic with triumph: a score of an exact, sophisticated and self-effacing skill, not only in its blend of Eastern and Eastern elements, but in the way in which it slowly and compellingly marshals its power. Precisely reflecting the tradition in which the opera has been conceived, it is music in which every gesture tells, its lean, subtly refined idiom trenchantly accommodating the utmost ferocity and the utmost pathos. (October 1979, The Daily Telegraph by Robert Henderson) NB: This opera has been published by Faber Music, London in English, German and Japanese versions.

Minoru Miki's "Joruri" embodies new, fine-grained Western responses to the formality, to the contrasts of obliquity and directness, to the startling changes of pace (near-static musing, sudden violence), to picturesqueness that serves poetic ends. Miki's score matches-animates, enacts-the drama at every point. He uses an orchestra of moderate size and three Japanese instruments. Of all the cross-culture composers, Miki has perhaps most successfully united Japanese and Western elements in a personal and highly expressive language. The score of "Joruri" is notable for its delicate, unconventional, affecting color combinations, supple rhythms, pacing, and for its eloquent melodic lines. At the performance I attended, the audience seemed spellbound, and at the close the silent that is the deepest mark of appreciation yielded gradually to cheers and a long standing ovation. (June 1985, The NEWYORKER, by Andrew Porter)
NB This opera has been published by ZENON Music in English and Japanese versions.

The world premiere of Minoru Miki's "The Tale of Genji," was a particular success. Mr. Miki's score was an atmospheric masterpiece, its style Western but with an unsettled tonality recalling Debussy and Britten, a modern work that seems absolutely faithful to its ancient poetic source. Japanese gestures were seamlessly integrated into the musical fabric so they never sounded like jarring color effects. (June 2000, the Wall Street Journal, by Heldi Waleson)
NB This opera is available in English and Japanese versions.

In addition to these three operas, Miki's third historical opera "Wakahime"(1991) was published its vocal score in Japanese and English versions. Generously supported by the Fukutake Cultural Foundation, Colin Graham has already completed the English version in 2004. BCA will publish it in early 2005. The opera is superb grand opera based on the Japanese history in the fifth century. One can listen to one of Japanese production on compact disk published by Camerata Tokyo Co.

"The Monkey Poet"(1983), one of Miki's folk operas, has been performed almost 300 times in Japanese. An English version was also made by Colin Graham. It has not been performed in English yet. "Husband the Hen" (1963), an operetta which Miki composed in Japanese in the early stages of his career has prepared its German version named "Der Ehemann als Huhn" by Siegfried Schaarschmidt, although it has not been performed in German yet.

Information concerning Miki's other small operas, choral operas, operetta and mono operas, can be accessed via Miki's website (Japanese pages). Also YUI Shuppan can supply the handwritten scores and recordings. Miki has finished composing of his ninth historical opera "The Happy Pagoda" which conclude “Minoru MIKI, Nine opera series along 1600 years Japanese history” in 2010.

Between 20^th February and 5^th June of same 2010, Heidelberg Theatre had European (German) premiere of "Ai-En" sung in Japanese (German subtitle) with huge success. Miki himself was quite surprised by the production because of Japanese singing. It was first case in the history that Japanese full-length opera performed in Germany by western singers in original Japanese. Please refer its wonderful reviews below (Entire review of Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung can be seen Ai-En's item below).

"Without any doubt, the European premiere of Minoru Miki's opera Ai-En will go down in the annals of the theater of Heidelberg ... The premiere was a performance in which all was just right: the music, the singers and the scene. The now 79 years old Minoru Miki is one of the most important composers of the present time. His work Ai-En is so fascinating that there could be nobody not feeling deeply impressed."
"The 2006 New National Theatre Tokyo commissioned work "Ai-En" forges links between the musics of the west and the east. Conspiciously, the whole composition is built on - expanded - western tonality. Though Miki doesn't present catchy melodies, his music is beautiful, expressive, clear and easy to remember."
(23^rd Feb. 2010, Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, by Von Ludwig Steinbach)