Page 126 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

essay of 1989, “The Japan that can say No: why Japan will be first
among equals.” Japan is now a byword for stagnating growth,

population decline and an ageing citizenry. At the same time, it is
a mirror into which Europe must look, learning lessons on how to

reckon with what will be, for developed economies, increasingly
pressing problems.

♦♦♦

I first came to Japan in 1995, my first job as a full-time singer,

travelling to the city of Matsumoto in the Nagano Prefecture

(close to the so-called Japanese Alps). I was to sing the small role
of Sellem the auctioneer in Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress at the

Saito Kinen Festival, founded in 1992 by the recently deceased
conductor Seiji Ozawa in honour of his teacher, Hideo Saito.

Great musicians were attracted to this out-of-the-way festival. I
remember hearing Mstislav Rostropovich (“Slava”) play Bach

cello suites; and the cream of international orchestral players,

Japanese and non-Japanese, played in the Saito Kinen Orchestra
under Seiji’s charismatic and uniquely energetic baton. He

danced at the podium.

Visiting Japan for the first time since the pandemic, I can sense a

certain anxiety about the future, emanating from a society that is

determined to cope with modernity. Tokyo still pulsates with
energy and a characteristic level of overstaffing, which now

makes eminent sense to a European confronted with post-
pandemic understaffing. As is the case in many places I visit,

especially since Covid, classical music feels under pressure. But in

a country that has had a bond with Austro-German culture since
the late 19th century—and which, at Morita’s behest, designed

the CD specifically to accommodate the length of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony—concerts continue. Audiences come,