We left at the interval...

La Monnaie at the Théâtre National, Brussels, Sunday April 9 2017 Conductor: Bassem Akiki. Production and choreography: Sasha Waltz. Sets: Pia Maier Schriever, Chiharu Shiota. Costumes: Christine Birkle. Lighting: Martin Hauk. Matsukaze: Barbara Hannigan. Murasame: Charlotte Hellekant. Mönch: Frode Olsen. Fischer: Kai-Uwe Fahnert. La Monnaie Chamber Music Orchestra. Sasha Waltz & Guests. Vocalconsort Berlin. Hosokawa My first experience of an opera by Toshio Hosokawa was his Hanjo , shortly before Matsukaze was premiered in May 2011, and I liked it. So I wasn't totally put off by La Monnaie's Synopsis of the latter, however unpromising it looked: "On a beach, a monk on a pilgrimage discovers a single pine tree on which two names have been carved: Matsukaze (Wind in the Pine Trees) and Murasame (Autumn Rain), the names of two sisters who are buried nearby. He falls asleep next to a shed for storing salt. Matsukaze and Murasame fill their buckets with seaweed...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday April 10 2011 Conductor: Koen Kessels. Production: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Sets and lighting: Jan Joris Lamers. Costumes: Tim Van Steenbergen. Hanako: Ingela Bohlin. Jitsuko Honda: Frederika Brillembourg. Yoshio: William Dazeley. La Monnaie chamber orchestra. Photo: Kaz Ishikawa It was interesting to have Hanjo so soon after Akhmatova . As I mentioned when writing up the latter, there has been little praise for Mantovani’s score, though I found it serviceable enough. Hosokawa's music is really something else: often (not always: there are plenty of drums, of different sizes, for times of drama) delicate and diaphanous, refined, subtle…sometimes infinitely quiet, quieter than any music we usually hear. So poor old Akhmatova seemed positively rustic and clodhopping in comparison. There’s little more musical “action” in Hanjo than in, say, L’Amour de Loin (though I must say at times it reminded me of Turn of the Screw or Death in Venice , only m...