March 30, 2011
By ROBIN POGREBIN
By ROBIN POGREBIN
The Metropolitan Opera is debating whether to proceed with its scheduled Japanese tour in June, an ambitious trip that was several years in the planning and would be the Met’s first to that country since 2006.
Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, met on Tuesday with union representatives about safety concerns and on Wednesday issued a statement to the entire company that described the tour as being “in jeopardy at this time.”
Mr. Gelb said any risk created by problems at nuclear reactors would be fully evaluated “before the advance team is scheduled to depart in the middle of May.”
Performances in the three-week tour are to begin June 4 at the Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya. It would be the Met’s seventh Japan tour, all but one of which have been presented by the Japan Arts Corporation of Tokyo. “I have indicated to them that we hope that the situation will improve so that the tour can take place as scheduled,” Mr. Gelb said of Japan Arts, with which the Met has a contract to perform.
The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and American Ballet Theater are also scheduled to perform in Japan in the coming months at events organized by Japan Arts. The rock artist Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses, performed in Japan just a few days after the March 11 earthquake, though he was forced to cancel three shows in Tokyo and Yokohama.
Mr. Gelb said in his statement that it would be premature to decide now whether to proceed with the opera company’s trip because the situation could change “for better or for worse” in the eight weeks before the company is to depart. “If the State Department continues to warn at that time that travel to Japan is not advisable, we will, of course, cancel the tour,” he said.
The State Department’s travel advisory on Wednesday “strongly urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Japan at this time and those in Japan should consider departing.”
Alan S. Gordon, national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union representing many in the opera company, said: “Singers are concerned about going and taking their families. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. I’m assuming some people will simply decide they can’t personally go.”
Marvis Martin, a soprano in the Met chorus, said in an interview that she thought the trip would put a lot of people at risk. “There still is a little time,” she said, “and I’m hoping that the strategy is they’re just waiting to the last possible minute, hoping the Japanese will cancel, so we won’t have to. I don’t want to put my health at risk, and I think my call would be to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t go.’ But at this point I’m proceeding like I’m going, just like the Met is.”
The Met’s music director, James Levine, is to conduct two of the tour’s three fully-staged operas: Puccini’s “Bohème” and Verdi’s “Don Carlo.” Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” is to be conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. A Met spokesman said that Mr. Levine was not available to discuss the trip. But his manager, Ronald Wilford, said: “Whatever the Met decides, he will do. If the Met administration believes it can go to Japan and not risk things, then he will go, I think. I haven’t talked to him about it, and I’m not going to.”
The Met would not disclose how much was financially at stake if the tour is cancelled. The trip, announced in November 2009, is to include 13 performances involving more than 350 solo singers, orchestra, chorus, ballet, and administrative and technical staff. The star singers scheduled to appear include Ildar Abdrazakov, Piotr Beczala, Olga Borodina, Joseph Calleja, Diana Damrau, Barbara Frittoli, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Mariusz Kwiecien, Zeljko Lucic, Anna Netrebko, René Pape and Susanna Phillips.
After Nagoya the company is to move to Tokyo for performances at the Bunka Kaikan theater and NHK Hall. The concert halls are about 170 miles from Fukushima, where nuclear reactors were damaged by the earthquake.
The Met’s first Japan tour was in 1975, and the most recent was in 2006. The tour’s lead sponsor is the KDDI Corporation, a telecommunications company based in Japan. The Met’s transmissions of live performances into movie theaters have been shown regularly in Japan since the series began in 2006.
A spokeswoman for the Japanese Consulate in New York, Naoko Kawaguchi, said she was unaware of any cultural group cancelling a visit to Japan. Areas away from the reactors are safe, she said, and “life in Tokyo is as it was before.”
Kelly Ryan, a spokeswoman for American Ballet Theater, which is scheduled to perform in Tokyo in July, said the company was monitoring the situation. “At this time we feel it’s premature to make a decision either way,” she said.
Japan Arts, the tour presenter, could not be reached for comment. But on its Web site it says it brings the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies and dance companies to Japan “based on the conviction that experiencing the power of true artistry gives human beings a zest for life.”
The guitarist Slash left Japan shortly after his March concert in Osaka but went on Twitter immediately after the show: “Great gig in Osaka tonight. Great spirits, despite all that has happened.”
Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, met on Tuesday with union representatives about safety concerns and on Wednesday issued a statement to the entire company that described the tour as being “in jeopardy at this time.”
Mr. Gelb said any risk created by problems at nuclear reactors would be fully evaluated “before the advance team is scheduled to depart in the middle of May.”
Performances in the three-week tour are to begin June 4 at the Aichi Arts Center in Nagoya. It would be the Met’s seventh Japan tour, all but one of which have been presented by the Japan Arts Corporation of Tokyo. “I have indicated to them that we hope that the situation will improve so that the tour can take place as scheduled,” Mr. Gelb said of Japan Arts, with which the Met has a contract to perform.
The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and American Ballet Theater are also scheduled to perform in Japan in the coming months at events organized by Japan Arts. The rock artist Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses, performed in Japan just a few days after the March 11 earthquake, though he was forced to cancel three shows in Tokyo and Yokohama.
Mr. Gelb said in his statement that it would be premature to decide now whether to proceed with the opera company’s trip because the situation could change “for better or for worse” in the eight weeks before the company is to depart. “If the State Department continues to warn at that time that travel to Japan is not advisable, we will, of course, cancel the tour,” he said.
The State Department’s travel advisory on Wednesday “strongly urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Japan at this time and those in Japan should consider departing.”
Alan S. Gordon, national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union representing many in the opera company, said: “Singers are concerned about going and taking their families. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. I’m assuming some people will simply decide they can’t personally go.”
Marvis Martin, a soprano in the Met chorus, said in an interview that she thought the trip would put a lot of people at risk. “There still is a little time,” she said, “and I’m hoping that the strategy is they’re just waiting to the last possible minute, hoping the Japanese will cancel, so we won’t have to. I don’t want to put my health at risk, and I think my call would be to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t go.’ But at this point I’m proceeding like I’m going, just like the Met is.”
The Met’s music director, James Levine, is to conduct two of the tour’s three fully-staged operas: Puccini’s “Bohème” and Verdi’s “Don Carlo.” Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” is to be conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. A Met spokesman said that Mr. Levine was not available to discuss the trip. But his manager, Ronald Wilford, said: “Whatever the Met decides, he will do. If the Met administration believes it can go to Japan and not risk things, then he will go, I think. I haven’t talked to him about it, and I’m not going to.”
The Met would not disclose how much was financially at stake if the tour is cancelled. The trip, announced in November 2009, is to include 13 performances involving more than 350 solo singers, orchestra, chorus, ballet, and administrative and technical staff. The star singers scheduled to appear include Ildar Abdrazakov, Piotr Beczala, Olga Borodina, Joseph Calleja, Diana Damrau, Barbara Frittoli, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Mariusz Kwiecien, Zeljko Lucic, Anna Netrebko, René Pape and Susanna Phillips.
After Nagoya the company is to move to Tokyo for performances at the Bunka Kaikan theater and NHK Hall. The concert halls are about 170 miles from Fukushima, where nuclear reactors were damaged by the earthquake.
The Met’s first Japan tour was in 1975, and the most recent was in 2006. The tour’s lead sponsor is the KDDI Corporation, a telecommunications company based in Japan. The Met’s transmissions of live performances into movie theaters have been shown regularly in Japan since the series began in 2006.
A spokeswoman for the Japanese Consulate in New York, Naoko Kawaguchi, said she was unaware of any cultural group cancelling a visit to Japan. Areas away from the reactors are safe, she said, and “life in Tokyo is as it was before.”
Kelly Ryan, a spokeswoman for American Ballet Theater, which is scheduled to perform in Tokyo in July, said the company was monitoring the situation. “At this time we feel it’s premature to make a decision either way,” she said.
Japan Arts, the tour presenter, could not be reached for comment. But on its Web site it says it brings the world’s leading orchestras, opera companies and dance companies to Japan “based on the conviction that experiencing the power of true artistry gives human beings a zest for life.”
The guitarist Slash left Japan shortly after his March concert in Osaka but went on Twitter immediately after the show: “Great gig in Osaka tonight. Great spirits, despite all that has happened.”
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