Co-Production and the Launch of the Mito International Music Festival

Japan Contemporaries (JC): It is said that it took five years to complete this work after the first production, Zero. Could you tell us about its conception?

Kaito Nakahori (KN): The premiere of Zero was on September 13, 2020. Just a few days after that performance, Oriza Hirata and I began discussing our next project—its theme would be the universe, and it would employ the spatial audio technology developed at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique, Centre Pompidou). In fact, in 2017, through the recommendation of composer Toshio Hosokawa (b. 1955), I had the opportunity to study at IRCAM in France, where I learned this spatial audio technology [utilized in The Star Has No Sound: Clockwork Universe].

Later, in 2018, I received an award in a competition held by the Royaumont Foundation in France, which led to a commissioned work produced in collaboration with IRCAM. The premiere was initially planned for 2019 but was postponed to August 2021 due to the pandemic. The resulting work, Countless Wells, was presented as a 30-minute spatial audio opera for soprano, cello, and electronics, performed in a monastery garden surrounded by lush summer vegetation with 36 speakers installed throughout the space. The first movement, Timepiece, and the second movement, Adieu, which I composed for that work, have now become the foundation for this new theater opera.

JC: How did you come to meet the great masters of the Japanese art world, Toshio Hosokawa and Oriza Hirata? In what ways have they influenced you, and how did those encounters lead to the creation of your theater opera?

KN: I have learned a great deal from Toshio Hosokawa over many years as a mentor. In particular, I have been deeply influenced by his approach of elevating the unique sense of time inherent in traditional Japanese music into the realm of contemporary music. Around that time, Hosokawa was collaborating with Oriza Hirata on the opera Stilles Meer (Silent Sea, commissioned by the Staatsoper Hamburg, premiered in 2016), which dealt with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. For me, that became a major inspiration to create a form of total art through my own music.

In time, through Hosokawa’s recommendation, I was given the opportunity to present a work at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan in the concert marking the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Hungary. On that occasion, I was also able to speak directly with Hirata, who directed the concert. We discussed the role of opera in contemporary society and the possibilities of new artistic expression. It was then that I first shared with him my ideas for the opera Zero, and this encounter eventually developed into our later collaboration.

JC: This second work is a co-production between the Mito International Music Festival, founded by you, the Toyooka Theater Festival, and the Setouchi Triennale. Could you tell us about the significance of comprehensively encompassing these three artistic genres through the creation of this theater opera?

KN: Traditional total art forms, beginning with opera, have been created by comprehensively drawing on the three artistic forms of music, theater, and visual art. In that sense, creating a new work within festivals that bear the names of these three genres carries a significance far greater than a simple performance. It is truly a “re-creation of total art,” and it can present new possibilities for connecting different arts in the contemporary age.

On the occasion of this co-production, I planned and launched the Mito International Music Festival as general director. Behind this was the strong influence I received from the practices of Director Hirata in Toyooka and Director Kitagawa in Setouchi. That is, the perspective of integrating art and tourism, and of enjoying art in the outdoors and within nature. From this, I drew inspiration to conceive a music festival with the theme of “the fusion of music and tourism.”

In this way, based on the idea of linking tourism and art, and enjoying them within nature and local resources, I hope that these three regions will be united by a common philosophy and that it will lead to the development of multifaceted regional revitalization.

JC: What was the background behind the founding of the Mito International Music Festival?

KN: In Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Mayor Kazunobu Sagawa (1940-1995) established the Art Tower Mito in 1990 with the vision of “making Mito the foremost cultural city in Japan.” He invited Hidekazu Yoshida (1913-2012), one of Japan’s leading music critics, to serve as the first director, and appointed artistic directors for each of the three divisions—music, theater, and visual art—when the institution opened. From 2013 to 2024, the world-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa (1935-2024) succeeded as director, expressing his wish that “the activities of the institution would spread throughout the lives of the townspeople and become something close and familiar to them.” I was deeply moved by this cultural policy of Mito City and the Art Tower Mito, which set out to present the three fields of the arts comprehensively.

In the context of this theater opera co-production, the Toyooka Theater Festival, focused on theater, and the Setouchi Triennale, focused on visual art, had already been confirmed as collaborators. I added the Mito International Music Festival, focused on music, by launching it anew, inspired strongly by the cultural policies that were in place in Mito at the time.

JC: What effects do you expect by launching the music festival in Mito?

KN: When I personally experienced the Toyooka Theater Festival and the Setouchi Triennale as an audience member, I was struck by how tourism, nature, and art were integrated, creating a strong synergistic effect. There are very few examples where such initiatives have been realized so deeply. In fact, when I proposed a music festival centered on outdoor performances under the theme of “the fusion of music and tourism,” there were some skeptical voices. However, having experienced successful examples firsthand, I came to be confident in the approach. The theater opera, which also symbolizes this initiative, is an attempt to expand upon the methods that bore fruit in Toyooka and Setouchi to Mito, while preserving the distinct qualities of music. By introducing a new form of musical presentation, I hope to further develop and grow this music festival.

Theater Opera The Star Has No Sound: Clockwork Universe

JC: First, could you give us an overview of this work?

KN: The work is themed around the universe and inner imagery. Using the latest spatial audio technology, it expresses a multidimensional space where Hirata’s contemporary colloquial theater alternates with my contemporary music arias performed using vocalise—a singing method without lyrics, using only the voice.

JC: How do you structure the two forms, theater and music, together as a “theater opera”?

KN: Hirata’s “contemporary colloquial theater” is a theatrical method that emphasizes natural speech and expressions close to everyday conversation, and it has had a major influence on Japanese theater since the 1990s. In my own music, I also pursue “natural sound,” so rather than setting dialogue to a

melody as in traditional stage music, I focus on the essence of the singing voice itself. I use a technique called a vocalise aria, in which fragments of words and vocal sounds are sung.

In the theater opera, this contemporary colloquial theater is combined with the vocalise aria, portraying how the theater and aria contrast with each other while gradually fusing. By bringing together different forms of artistic expression, their differences and commonalities are highlighted, generating synergy and new value. One inspiration behind this is the concept of parallel worlds depicted in Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985). Furthermore, the two worlds of theater and music are connected by imagining the entire venue—including the audience—as a single mental space. In this work, the concept of combining different existences is incorporated throughout. The title itself reflects this: The Star Has No Sound represents the theatrical aspect, and Clockwork Universe represents the musical aspect, together presenting a single cohesive work. 

JC: Why did you choose the themes of the universe and mental imagery this time?

KN: The theme of depicting “mental imagery,” or the inner world of the mind, has been consistent since the first work. In Zero, Rei, a woman who has lost her words, struggles yet expresses her own “song” as an aria, while three women living in a sanatorium recount their memories of seeing the sea for the first time. As arias and theatrical scenes alternate and contrast, their hearts, swaying between life and death, ultimately converge into a single world of light. Through this flow, the audience is also drawn deep into the world of the mind.

The theme of the “universe” was a shared interest between Mr. Hirata and myself. In 2010–11, Mr. Hirata staged Kenji Miyazawa’s children’s story Night on the Galactic Railroad (1934) in France, and has continued performing it ever since. My own fascination with the universe was sparked by Osamu Tezuka’s manga Phoenix (1954-1988) and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Phoenix explores philosophical themes such as life and death and the cycle of reincarnation while pursuing the fundamental question of “what is the universe?” Its structure—beginning with the “Dawn” chapter (the age of beginnings) and the “Future” chapter (the age of endings), alternating between ancient and future times, and ultimately arriving at the “present”—was an important source of inspiration for expressing the “collapse of the universe” in this work. The consistent appearance of the Phoenix throughout each chapter also gave me the idea to have Rei continue appearing across theater operas.

Furthermore, I incorporated the universe’s property, suggested by Albert Einstein’s relativity, that “time flows differently under gravity.” One second on Earth is different on the Moon, and in strong gravitational fields like a black hole, the same second can correspond to a long period on Earth.

I expressed this multilayered concept of time by combining live performance with pre-recorded performance. The on-stage performance represents the “present,” while the recordings symbolize the “past,” creating a structure in which the present self confronts the past self. By interweaving these different timelines, the universe—the world of the mind—is vividly depicted.

JC: What message do you hope to convey through this work?

KN: Everyone will eventually face death, and all existence will one day come to an end. I believe that to live is to continually confront this “end.” Through my own life experiences, I have come to feel that leaving my thoughts behind in the form of sound is the most important thing. Music is an art that governs emotion. When I listen to works I have created in the past, the feelings of those moments come flooding back. The past and the future are connected, and the present moment gently fades away. Each individual sound is a life in itself, carrying its own unique drama. Through this work, I wanted to create a space where we can share and resonate with these echoes of life together.