Noh Sumidagawa and A Tale of the Sumida River at the Aldeburgh Festival receive a 5-star★★★★★ review from The Guardian.
Sumidagawa, written by Kanze Motomasa (c.1394 – 1432), the eldest son of Zeami Motokiyo (c.1363 – c.1443), immensely inspired Benjamin Britten to compose the church parable Curlew River. The masterpiece was performed by acclaimed Noh performers from Japan at the festival for the first time in 33 years.
The Noh performance was preceded by a commissioned English retelling of the story, A Tale of Sumida River written by Xanthe Gresham Knight and Gareth Mattey which enabled audiences to understand the story and meaning of movement of Noh actors without relying on the subtitle.
Photo by Marcus Roth © Britten Pears Arts
Pre-performance talk: Ahead of the evening performance, there was a conversation between two experts about Japanese theatre and the renowned Noh play Sumidagawa. The talk features Kohei Kawaguchi of Kanze School, one of this evening’s Noh artists, and Jason James, director general of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.
Motomasa Kanze: Sumidagawa (90’)
Shizuka Mikata shite, mother
Seigo Mikuriya waki, ferryman
Gasho Yamanaka jiutai chorusp
Kohei Kawaguchi jiutai chorus
Yasuki Kobayakawa jiutai chorus
Yasumitsu Kobayakawa jiutai chorus
Yasuhiro Sakoh nohkan flute
Tatsushi Narita kotsuzumi shoulder drum
Tetsuya Yamamoto otsuzumi hip drum
Monet Hirai: kokata ( child role)
https://brittenpearsarts.org/events/sumidagawa
Although Benjamin Britten only spent 12 days in Japan in 1956, his experiences had a profound impact on him. He writes that seeing Sumidagawa for the first time “made a tremendous impression on me […] it all offered a totally new ‘operatic’ experience […] The memory of this play has seldom left my mind in the years since”.
He insisted on seeing the play twice before he left, and in the subsequent years considered how best he might translate his experience into his own musical language. The result is Curlew River, a church parable or mini opera set in Britten’s native East Anglia; it uses British musical traditions but preserves the story and intensity of the Noh original. All the elements that Britten so admired in Sumidagawa are preserved in Curlew River: “the simple touching story, the economy of the style, the intense slowness of the action, the marvellous skills and control of the performers, the beautiful costumes, the mixture of chanting, speech, singing”. Writing on the occasion of the premiere of Curlew River he said, “if we on the stage and you in the audience can achieve half the intensity and concentration of that original drama [Sumidagawa] I shall be happy”. ( text contributed by George Maude, Aldeburgh Festival Foundation and Trust)
