"Buongiorno! Shimin Opera" is a project planned by Inagi Civic Opera, which has been adopted as one of Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL. 

Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL is a subsidy program promoted by Tokyo Metropolitan Government and ARTS COUNCIL TOKYO toward year 2020. For the project, we will perform an opera "L'elisir d'amore" in cooperation with other groups all over Japan in May 5th and 6th, 2020, in Tokyo.

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  * Shimin is a Japanese word, which literally means citizen in English.

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Inagi Civic Opera, which was established six years ago, has been performed activities settled in the area of Inagi-shi, Tokyo, whose tickets of opera performances were sold out every time so far. This time, we have planned an opera performance inviting public participation in order to introduce "civic or civil opera culture in Japan" from west part of Tokyo, that is Tama area, to the world along the year of Tokyo Olympic 2020. We applied the plan to Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL, which was an event promoted by Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, and our application was adopted as part of the festival program.
Opera has become popular and major genre in Japan now, and opera performance are held around a thousand a year. Especially, the number of opera performance in Tokyo area is tremendous among major cities all over the world. However, there are challenges that audience is becoming fixed and highly-aged, and that atmosphere in urban area and rural area is different, and so on. Professional groups and others has been trying to resolve those challenges, but it has not resolved fully.

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It is said, Shimin Opera, which is operated by citizens, and perform by citizens, was appeared in late 1960s in Japan. After that, shimin opera groups were established  all around Japan, and the number of opera groups reached 50 or 60. Even now, 30 - 50 groups have activities. We hear there are little like shimin opera groups in western countries, so we can say shimin opera is an original culture in Japan. We have planned this event by getting hint from this point.  

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This plan has two characteristics:

- Spectators can participate in some event or workshop about opera.

- Opera is to be performed in cooperation with some opera or chorus groups all around Japan. 

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Our purpose is making opera become popular which anyone can have access. We are expecting that meaning and know-how is shared among opera groups, and such movement is spread to other genre which has similar challenges 

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Japanese culture has become popular recently, and more people are likely to pay attention to Japan in 2020 through Tokyo Olympic.

Our goal is, through our performance, to have enjoy our "shimin", or civic, opera for visitors from the world, and also, to have more recognition of honorable Japanese "shimin opera" by worldwide reaction. We expect this plan to contribute much for the aim and to be a trigger for the such movement.

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Yoshiya Takahashi

Leader of Inagi Shimin Opera (Inagi Civic Opera Chorus)

 

  About Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL

  Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL is an initiative that will see a variety of cultural programs unfold in the run-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, promoting Tokyo’s appeal as a city of arts and culture.