Hansel und Gretel

I had a chance to watch what I guess would be Tomita's least known classical synth release. It appeared on VHS and Laser Disc in 1993 and went out of print sometime later in the 90s.

Here is a quick rundown. It's a 19th Century light and short opera by Engelbert Humperdink (the 19th century composer not the 1970s singer). The video is professionally shot live on stage with an audience. The singing is in Japanese replacing the original German. This is obviously good for Japanese kids and casual Japanese listeners but I can see how it would be a very limited interest item for say Europeans because of the changed language. The title roles by the way are played by grown female Japanese singers and the staging and costumes have an appropriate Germanic fairy tale look.

Tomita plays the role of the orchestra ;-). I'm sure his work is on pre-recorded tape. He spices things up with some colorful synth sounds though overall he has a sort of lush mostly digital sounding synthesized and sampled orchestra sound.

 

Watching it again I spotted a few other more or less interesting things.
Re-reading the above mentioning traditional European style costumes and sets I should add that the Witch is definitely not portrayed in an authentic fairy tale style. I'm sure she's meant to be a surprise so I won't spoil it here.

In wide shots you can see a conductor in the orchestra pit, which if you think about it is real odd since there's no orchestra. You only see the occasional hands and head in complete silhouette. I'm guessing it might be Tomita. He does come out and take center stage with the cast to bow during the curtain call at the end. So the reasoning behind having a conductor is somewhat of a conundrum. Maybe the audience sort of expects conductor. A psychological experiment of some sort? Functionally I would guess the performers would benefit if they see a conductor for tempo and emphasis but I doubt the whomever is conducting can actually influence the live music as it's all playback as far as I knows.

I'm guessing that Tomita didn't originate the idea of choosing this opera because it's not that close to his style. I'd suspect a producer of some sort commissioned him. None the less he gives a shot at adapting it to sound more Tomita-like. It doesn't reach the levels of any of his best work though it does have numerous sounds Tomita fans are familiar with.

There are some preludes and overtures lasting a few minutes without singing. The highlight IMHO is a ballet dream sequence near the middle with a lot of magical spacey orchestration. It only lasts 6 minutes or so. Anyone who knows Tomita's work would imediately recognize the style and sounds. The overture (I guess it's called) music is like a recapping of the main themes and isn't as creative. Some of it plays for several munites before the curtain goes up. Rather than show a closed curtain on the laser disc the editors cut in some still frames. I'm not sure if this works because you see scenes that haven't happened yet, so what's the point. I would have gotten a hold of some artwork to set the mood.

 

Thanks for the write up, Nick. So when the conductor comes up to take a bow, is he still in sillouette, or can you see his facial features? How is the quality of the soundtrack?

 

He comes out from back stage though the music is still playing in a sort of suite or medley under the applause. One couldn't come directly up from the orchestra to the stage I presume anyway - though I guess they could have thrown a spotlight on the conductor if they wanted to. But that wouldn't show the group effort because the whole cast joins hands onstage with Tomita the last person and in the center.

It would make most sense if it was the vocal coach conducting and not Tomita, though the small silhouette seen shows no evidence as *not* being Tomita - like if it looked like a woman or had very different hair. Mostly you see unlit arms and hands at the foot of the stage. The camera never shows you what's down there. I wish it did.

As for the quality, I just have a dub of it. I assume the quality is decent. The notes which I've seen a xerox of shows you where to place your speakers for the best RSS effect (Roland Sound Space virtual 3D audio). There are several pages of notes in Japanese.

That said it is a live recording so the music and the singing were both picked up with mics live. They probably run some of the music in directly but it would have to be at least partly combined with the music paicked up while recording the singers and applauding audience.