Mention "Die Soldaten," B.A. Zimmermann's dark, uncompromising and harrowing work of 1960s modernism, and Hiroshi Wakasugi visibly brightens. It's the first season for this highly respected conductor as artistic director of Tokyo's New National Theater, and he's clearly very, very pleased that he has managed to get the opera onto the NNT stage next May.
In fact, it's a minor miracle, and a testament to Wakasugi's powers of persuasion and his standing in the Japanese classical music community. Though a landmark of postwar opera, "Die Soldaten" probably won't have audiences flocking to the theater, and the logistic requirements — a more than 100-piece orchestra, augmented by pre-recorded music and electronic sounds, together with 16 singing roles and 10 speaking roles and a mind-bogglingly complex mise-en-scene — border on the nightmarish.
"Perhaps it was too avant-garde a choice," says Wakasugi, who will conduct the production himself, although the smile playing about his lips shows he is quite unrepentant. "But it's an important work. People need to have the chance to see it."