The final event of the annual “Concerti di Tokyo Kudan” series took place at the Auditorium of the Italian Institute of Culture of Tokyo, under the artistic direction of Maestro Gaetano D’Espinosa.
The evening featured tenor Marcello Nardis, an artist with a long-standing international career, accompanied at the piano by Ayako Takada, a collaborator of the New National Theatre Opera Studio in Tokyo.
The programme offered the Japanese audience a refined and deeply evocative musical journey through selected masterpieces of the European vocal repertoire, including Visione veneziana by Brogi, marked by its intense lyricism, Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, a technically demanding and impassioned vocal cycle inspired by the poetic texts of Michelangelo Buonarroti and, in conclusion, Luciano Berio’s Quattro canzoni popolari, distinguished by their vibrant vitality.
The recital was met with an excellent audience response, with particular appreciation shown for the encores performed outside the official programme: “Nemu no Ki no Komoriuta” (Lullaby of the Silk Tree), a Japanese children’s song, and “Sì dolce è ’l tormento”, a madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi. Launched in January 2023, the Tokyo Kudan Minami concert series has become a well-established and much-anticipated fixture in the musical programming of the Italian Cultural Institute.
