The New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) ( 新国立劇場 , Shin Kokuritsu Gekijō ) is Japan's first and foremost national centre for the performing arts, including opera , ballet , contemporary dance and drama . It is located in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo . Since 1997 more than 650 productions were staged. There are about 300 performances per season with approximately 200,000 theatergoers. The centre has been praised for its architecture and state-of-the-art modern theatre facilities, which are considered among the best in the world. In 2007, the NNTT was branded with the advertising slogan: Opera Palace, Tokyo .
19-620: The construction of the NNTT was completed in February 1997. Its first public performances took place in October of that year. The Tokyo Opera City Tower is connected to the theatre. It has concert halls, an art gallery, a media-art museum, office space, many restaurants and shops. The combined complex of the skyscraper tower and the theatre is called the "Tokyo Opera City". Besides the public performances, various enterprises are undertaken, such as
38-684: Is a skyscraper located in Shinjuku, Tokyo , Japan . Completed in 1996, it stands 234 metres (768 feet) high and has 54 floors. The tower is the third-tallest building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and seventh-tallest in Tokyo. The closest train station to Opera City is Hatsudai . The building houses concert halls, an art gallery, a media-art museum ( NTT InterCommunication Center ) and many restaurants and shops on its lower floors. The fifth through fifty-second floors are devoted to office space. The building
57-618: Is adjacent to the New National Theater , which is located in Shibuya , Tokyo. The combined complex of the tower and the theatre is called the "Tokyo Opera City". The building is seen blown up by a UFO in the 1999 Kaiju film Godzilla 2000 . This article about a Japanese building- or structure-related topic is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Yukio Ninagawa Yukio Ninagawa ( 蜷川 幸雄 , Ninagawa Yukio , October 15, 1935 – May 12, 2016)
76-487: Is financed by the Japanese government, major conductors, directors, and performing artists have all complained that their creative ideas are restricted by the bureaucratic style of the arts management. In 2010, the government decided to cut down the ¥ 4.8 billion grant NNTT received the previous year by half, and reduce the government grants to trainees who want to work and study abroad. In 2005, conductor Hiroshi Wakasugi
95-539: The Barbican Arts Centre in London, with their production of Coriolanus . In 1955 Ninagawa first joined theatre company "Seihai" (‘young actors’). In 1967 he left the group and set up his own theatre company, "Gendaijin-Gekijo" (‘modern people's theatre’). He made his debut as a director in 1969 with Shinjo afururu keihakusa (‘genuine frivolity’?). After the disbandment of “Gendaijin-Gekijo” in 1971, in
114-968: The Modern Noh plays of Yukio Mishima (which toured to New York's Lincoln Center in early summer 2005) and several other plays by Japanese dramatists, including Shūji Terayama and Kunio Shimizu . His production of Titus Andronicus was performed in England in June 2006, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford and the Theatre Royal in Plymouth. In 2007 his company participated in the Barbican International Theatre Event (BITE) series at
133-811: The NNTB Company as the Co-Artistic Director with Asami Maki from 2010. The NNBT has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (Asami Maki's Raymonda in February 2008), and will also perform Asami Maki's version of La dame aux camellias , as a guest company at the Bolshoi Theatre in September 2009. The NNTB is striving to become Asia's best ballet company as well as an internationally recognized company (Top 10) in
152-641: The New National Theatre Ballet (otherwise known as NNTB) is Asami Maki, who previously led the Maki Asami Ballet Troupe in Tokyo. Frequent foreign guest artists include Svetlana Zakharova and Denis Matvienko. The company's balletic identity draws from Russian, British, and French classical ballet traditions. David Bintley who is the current Artistic Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet will lead
171-583: The US and Canada. He was invited to present a play each year in London, for three years in a row – Midsummer Night's Dream in 1996, Shintokumaru (name of the male protagonist) in 1997, and Hamlet in 1998. In addition he collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1999 to 2000 and presented King Lear at London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Ninagawa won many awards in Japan, and he
190-404: The decision, her questions were ignored by the board presidency. Nagai later went public with her questions on the decision in a statement signed by other prominent theater dramatists, including Hisashi Inoue , Yukio Ninagawa , and Yōji Sakate , but the board never responded to the questions. Tokyo Opera City Tower Tokyo Opera City Tower ( 東京オペラシティタワー , Tōkyō Opera Shiti Tawā )
209-453: The enterprises in above, is commissioned to New National Theatre Foundation (NNTF) from the independent administrative institution, known as The Japan Arts Council. NNTT is managed by several trust funds, government grants, admission revenues, and private donations from many supporting companies. The NNTT has been repeatedly criticized for its bureaucratic arts administration, which is very representative of usual Japanese politics. Although NNTT
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#1732782731387228-399: The following year he established a new theatre company called "Sakura-sha" ('cherry blossom company'), which once again resulted in disbandment three years later, 1974. At the same time, the year 1974 has become the turning point for Ninagawa, when the then Toho theatre producer Tadao Nakane invited him to direct larger productions, and as a result he came to work on a Shakespeare play for
247-401: The next few years. In the summer of 2008, the government-appointed theater board officials decided to replace artistic director Hitoshi Uyama with Keiko Miyata . The decision was announced at a June 30 board meeting, taking many of the board members by surprise because no prior discussion of replacing the director had taken place. When one of the board members, Ai Nagai , tried to question
266-521: The principal lead singers are frequently drawn from a circle of top foreign opera singers from Europe and elsewhere. World-class Japanese singers who are famous abroad are often invited to sing lead roles as well. To introduce Japanese-related works into the operatic world, the NNTO has embarked on producing works such as Shuzenji Monogatari , composed by Osamu Shimizu (June 2009), and Ikebe Shinichiro's Rokumeikan (June 2010). The current Artistic Director of
285-488: The very first time - Romeo and Juliet . Since then, he has become one of the most feted directors in the theatre world. In 1998 he vowed to direct all of Shakespeare's works, and in the year 2000 he directed the mammoth Greeks , a performance lasting for a total of ten and a half hours. Beginning in 1983 when he directed Medea , Ninagawa continued to do overseas tours every year, adding to his high reputation in Europe,
304-604: The young artist training programs (for ballet, opera, and theatre), theatre rental for other performing arts groups, performing arts-related exhibitions, public usage of its video library and book library, public performances for children and young students, backstage tours, and most importantly, international exchanges for performing arts events, etc. Moreover, The Stage Set & Design Centre (located in Choshi city, Chiba Prefecture ), stores and exhibits previously-used stage scenery and costumes. The arts management of NNTT, including
323-524: Was a Japanese theatre director, actor and film director, particularly known for his Japanese language productions of Shakespeare plays and Greek tragedies . He directed eight distinct renditions of Hamlet . Ninagawa was also emeritus of the Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music . Although most famous abroad for his touring productions of European classics, Ninagawa also directed works based on contemporary writing from Japan, including
342-531: Was awarded honorary doctorates in the UK by the University of Edinburgh (1992) and Plymouth University (2009). He is the father of the photographer and film director Mika Ninagawa. In his theatrical company Ninagawa Studio (Ninagawa Company), he continued to produce experimental productions with young people. In 2006, he founded a new theatrical group for people over 55 years old called "Saitama Gold Theatre" which
361-633: Was named artistic consultant to the opera division of the New National Theatre (also known as New National Theatre Opera , or NNTO ). This post preceded his appointment as artistic director (i.e. Music Director of the New National Theatre) from September 2007. However, Wakasugi died in July 2009 and Tadaaki Otaka was appointed as 'acting artistic director' for 2009/2010. The company's productions are usually conservative , and
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