From Shanghai to the US. Spain to Japan. 🌹
Today, the Phantom family comes together from across the world to celebrate 40 years of Phantom of the Opera.
Thank you to the companies, past and present, who continue to bring the music and story to audiences around the world. ✨
Chapter 4
On October 3, 2003, we celebrated the premiere of Elisabeth at the Theater an der Wien.
Sylvester Levay, Michael Kunze, Harry Kupfer and the creative team were there, and for me, it was an incredibly emotional evening. I had worked very hard for that moment.
Alongside my rehearsals, I spent around 180 hours studying German phonetics with Bigi Weidinger, an Austrian vocal coach and speech and diction trainer based in Vienna. Bigi truly taught me how to pronounce German.
It was demanding work. She paid attention to every vowel, every consonant and every word. Her goal was for my German pronunciation to be as perfect as possible by the premiere. It was not easy, but we worked with enormous discipline—and we succeeded.
Her teaching had a profound influence on me. What I learned from her has also shaped the way I teach young performers in Japan today as a professor. I would love to write more about that connection in a later chapter.
The premiere was also very special because members of my Hungarian Elisabeth family travelled to Vienna to support me. My Hungarian director, Kerényi Miklós Gábor—KERO—came together with Kata Janza, my Elisabeth; Attila Dolhai, my Rudolf; Tamás Földes; and several other members of the Hungarian cast.
They watched the premiere and joined us at the premiere party afterwards. Having them there meant so much to me. They had been part of the beginning of my journey with “Der Tod,” and now they were there to witness the beginning of this new chapter.
In 2003, as my Vienna chapter began, I stopped performing Elisabeth in Hungary. It felt as though one important period of my life was closing while another was opening in front of me.
Playing “Der Tod” in Vienna remains one of the greatest highlights of my career. At the time, however, I had no idea that this production would continue changing my life long after the final curtain. I want to write more about my time in Vienna, so I decided that I will write more chapters about it later.
I am taking a short break from this story because I have an important announcement to share. After that, I will return with Chapter 5—so please stay tuned.
𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇
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