Hiroshi Wakasugi, 65, recently conducted a presentation of Benjamin Britten's opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream," sumptuously staged by the Nikikai Opera. Hiroyuki Iwaki, 68, recently conducted Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in a brilliant program opening with a clever arrangement by Yuzo Toyama, 69, of Bach's great Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, divided between organ and orchestra. Both programs were striking in conception, superb in execution and altogether memorable.

Nikikai Opera Aug. 5, Hiroshi Wakasugi conducting, Tadashi Kato directing, in Bunkamura Orchard Hall -- "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Benjamin Britten, 1913-76), featuring Chizuru Mitsuhashi, Mayumi Matsuzono, Ryoji Inoue, Akemi Obata, Satoru Aoto, Emi Sawahata, Ken Ohsawa, Yuko Tobe, Susumu Matsumoto, Nobuaki Yoshida, Mitsuhiko Ohno, Izuru Fukuyama, Shigeki Tani, Kazuhiro Kotetsu, Mitsue Hasegawa, Eriko Shibata, Mie Umino, Yumiko Suzuki and Shin'ichiro Uchida, with The Tokyo Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and Nikikai Chorus

As general music director of the Rhein Opera in Dusseldorf since 1982, Wakasugi is richly experienced. As a conducting student at Geidai nearly four decades ago he prepared a performance of this opera which, according to conducting professor Jan Popper, was beautiful and perfect. Nikikai Opera pre-empted the production in order to present it for the Japanese premiere and handed the baton to the older conductor.

Now Wakasugi could have his justice. Some things are worth waiting for.

The Orchard Hall stage is not capable of many variations but the stage design, including the rampway arching over the orchestra pit, was interesting and imaginatively used. The stylized stage was filled with stylized costumes. The play within a play was fun, and the men's sextet, bawdy overacting and all, was hilarious.

The delightfully unpredictable character of Puck, portrayed by Shin'ichiro Uchida, was worthy of any stage in the world. It seemed clear that opera in Japan is maturing.

Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa Sept. 17, Hiroyuki Iwaki conducting in Takemitsu Memorial Hall -- Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750; arranged for organ and orchestra by Yuzo Toyama, born in Tokyo in 1932) featuring Hideyuki Kobayashi; "Le Son Calligraphi" I & III (Toru Takemitsu, 1930-96), "Eucalypts" I (Takemitsu) featuring Hiroshi Koizumi, Hajime Mizutani and Mari Kimura; "Toward the Sea" II (Takemitsu) featuring Hiroshi Koizumi and Mari Kimura; Music for Strings, Percussion, Piano, Celesta and Harp (Bela Bartok, 1881-1945)

The Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa's brilliantly contrived program opened with Yuzo Toyama's arrangement of Bach's great Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Attention has often been drawn to comparisons between the sound of a fine orchestra (just like an organ) and the sound of a great organ (just like an orchestra). Toyama highlighted this by assigning repeats alternately, first to the organ, then to the orchestra. It worked.

It helped enormously that Iwaki's rhythmic discipline (he is a former NHKSO percussionist) was matched by rhythmic stability in the organ soloist, Hideyuki Kobayashi. Many keyboard soloists allow the pace to slacken when they become entangled in intricacies of the 10-fingered technique. Kobayashi kept the multiple melodies in motion, and Iwaki synchronized the orchestra entrances with breathtaking accuracy.

The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is one of the best works of Bach's huge output for the organ. It was balanced at the end of the program by Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, Piano, Celesta and Harp, one of the understated masterworks of the 20th century. This is not a work of youthful, passionate utterance; the excitement is internal, deriving from the profound and controlled process of the ensemble.

The heartbeat of music is rhythm. Former percussionist Iwaki seems to personify that compassionate heart: No other conductor I have seen has appealed to the audience, bucket in hand, for funds for humanitarian relief (netting over 200,000 yen for victims of the typhoon ravaging the coast of Japan).

Iwaki presented three works by the late namesake of the hall, Toru Takemitsu. The first distributed the strings in two groups, as Bartok's music was to do again at the program's end. For "Eucalypts" the strings were arranged in three groups, in the center of which Hiroshi Koizumi, Hajime Mizutani and Mari Kimura exchanged solos. Takemitsu's color and spatial concepts were intriguing, but still, the music as such did not please.

There was much more satisfaction in the warm sonorities, melancholy motives and impressionistic harmonies of "Toward the Sea" II. Now arranged conventionally around the soloists, the strings were a lush color resource ebbing and flowing around the alto flute.