How to Order | Subscribe | Shop Merchandise
Director Yoshi Oida is a renowned Japanese actor in both theatre (many years in Peter Brooks' company) and film, and is a director of a wide range of projects including opera (The Nightingale, Nabucco, Don Giovanni, and Death in Venice). He is also a highly respected teacher and writer and in all his work mingles western and eastern influences, as can be seen in this production of Death in Venice.
The set is simple: wooden platforms evoke a Japanese esthetic, while Venice is alluded to by images on a television screen and a small pool of water. The costumes are appropriately Edwardian, the original setting of the novella.
Britten visited Japan in the 1950s. In the 1960s he reinterpreted a Noh play he had seen there and composed Curlew River, a one-act opera. Yoshi Oida, part of whose background is Japanese No theatre tradition, directed a production of Curlew River in 1998.