Manfred Gurlitt and the Japanese Operatic Scene, 1939-1972

Manfred Gurlitt (1890-1972), a gifted composer and conductor, came to feel he had to escape his native Germany in the late 1930s, as did many other musicians. Although he had, in an idiosyncratic fashion, come to terms with the National Socialist regime, he exiled himself to Japan in 1939, hoping to obtain a position that would allow him to maintain or even to burnish his reputation in the world of music. His most brilliant earlier successes had been in opera, and in Japan his career was mainly linked with opera. He worked diligently to affirm the "correct" European way of performing the operatic repertoire, and produced many first-time productions of high quality. His competent, rigorous work in the field grounded the whole operatic domain of postwar Japan, and indeed his influence continues to be felt to this day. An article in the Mainichi shinbun in 1956 stated that "no musician has had such a vast and important influence over the Japanese musical world." His years in Japan, however, were spent with an underlying sentiment of displacement. His sense of unease was compounded by dissatisfaction with and unfulfilled desire for Western (particularly German) acknowledgment of the merit of his work. In this article I aim to shed new light on the place of Manfred Gurlitt in twentieth-century music history by reexamining his Japanese activity, with some reference to his early oeuvre as a composer and success as a conductor in Germany. 豊かな才能に恵まれた作曲家かつ指揮者であったマンフレッ卜・グルリッ卜 (1890–1972) は他の多くの音楽家たち同様、1930年代末祖国ドイツを去ることを考えるようになる。当時の風潮に乗ってか、ナチ体制と関わりを持つに至ったにも拘らず、それまでに築き上げてきた音楽界での地位の維持、あるいはそれ以上の名声を求めて、結局1939年自ら日本ヘ亡命する。 彼が作曲家として初期の段階で最も輝かしい成功を収めたのはオぺラであり、日本においても主にこの分野で活動を続けた。ヨーロッパの正統的オぺラ上演を多数手がけ、高水準の多くの日本初演を実現した。専門的知識と厳格さに裏付けられたこの分野での彼の業績は、戦後の日本オぺラ界の総合的な基盤を作り、その影響は今日まで続いている。1956年の毎日新聞の記事は「日本の音楽界にこれほど広範で重要な影響を与えた音楽家は他に存在しない」とグルリッ卜を高く評価している。 しかし長期間にわたる日本浦在中、心の奥底にある流離感から彼が解放されたことはなかった。彼の満たされぬ思いは彼の作品の価値が西洋、ことにドイツで認められなかった不満に起因している。 本稿では、ドイツでの作曲家としての初期の作品や指揮者としての成功を視野に入れつつ、グルリットの日本での活動を再検証することにより、二十世紀の音楽史におけるマンフレット・グルリットの新たな視点を提供したい。