Interview with Francesca Le Lohé - composer and director of THE鍵KEY

Francesca Le Lohé is a composer, flautist, teacher and community musician from the UK, based in Tokyo, Japan. In 2015 she was awarded a Daiwa Scholarship. Her interest in Japanese culture was sparked by the music of Tōru Takemitsu and Kazuo Fukushima, and she was keen to learn more about Gagaku and shakuhachi music. She hoped that in Japan she could develop her career as a composer.

While on the 19-month Scholarship, Francesca studied Japanese at Naganuma Language School for one year, experienced a one-month homestay on Sado island in Niigata prefecture, and undertook her six-month work placement at the Japan Gagaku Society and the Kokoro no Oshaberi Ongaku.

Francesca continues to study biwa with Kumiko Shuto and sho with The Japan Gagaku Society and works as a co-music therapist at NPO Kokoro Talk Music.

Francesca’s production of ​ THE鍵KEY will be performed in East Dulwich, London on 3 and 4 August 2019 as part of Tête a Tête: The Opera Festival 2019.

1.What is THE鍵KEY?

THE鍵KEY  is an Anglo-Japanese, site-specifc opera inspired by Junichiro Tanizaki’s novel of the same name, composed and directed by myself. The work features four characters; the husband, the wife and the daughter, all portrayed by singers, and new-comer Kimura, portrayed by a dancer. These roles are grouped together with one western instrument and one Japanese instrument each to form trios which perform simultaneously in separate rooms of a private residence. Audiences are invited to move freely around the house, eavesdropping on these small ensembles as the intimate drama unfolds.

I had the concept for THE鍵KEY  bubbling away in the back of my mind for many years but I began to actually develop it when coming to the end of the Scholarship. During my time as a Scholar, I had met many wonderful people I wanted to collaborate with in order to bring this project into being. I formed a team comprised of a producer, a choreographer, fellow 2015 Daiwa Scholar Alexandra Rutter and 12 performers to premiere THE鍵KEY in a Japanese traditional house-cum-arts space, Nakacho no Ie, run by Art Access ‘Otomachi’ in Tokyo, May 2018. Following on from this success, the team expanded to include new participants and we embarked on further performances in the culturally significant Hirakushi Denchu House and Atelier in Tokyo, May 2019 and the UK premiere in the house of architect Angus Shepherd (Powell Tuck Associates) in London, August 2019 as part of Tete a Tete: The Opera Festival.

THE鍵KEY has been, and continuous to be an enormously important project for me, only made possible by the people, venues and partnering organisations I have been so fortunate to work with and through the greatly appreciated support of public and private funders.

2. What made you want to adapt Junichiro Tanizaki’s ‘The Key’?

I came across ‘The Key’ totally by chance in a second hand bookshop when studying for my masters in Scotland. I had read Tanizaki’s essay on Japanese aesthetics and tastes, “In Praise of Shadows”, so I thought I would give ‘The Key’ a read and was instantly gripped by the characters method of tacit communication. The novel is told through the husband and wife’s diary entries, written on the assumption that their partner will read them; the reader has to decide for themselves who to believe and what is only being said to manipulate the other character. I was interested in the intrigue, the secrecy, the scheming and also the reader’s experience. I wanted to take that reader’s experience and turn it into an audience experience: as the characters perform simultaneously, an audience member cannot hear and see everything, encouraging them to ‘fill in the gaps’ themselves and form their own impressions. Using small rooms within a house creates a really intimate atmosphere for a very intimate story; an audience member feels as though they are intruding on these private spaces, seeing something they shouldn’t really see and overhearing something they shouldn’t really hear, much like a reader of the novel prying into the couples’ diary entries. The performers are grouped together in separate rooms to physically represent how these characters are incapable of communicating directly with each other. It became clear that the aspects which inspired me most when reading the novel became fundamental to the staging of the opera.

3.  What are the biggest challenges you have faced when putting on THE鍵KEY?

The logistics of the project are pretty challenging. Since we don’t perform in concert halls or theatres, but private spaces or spaces which don’t usually host performances, you need to build a strong, understanding relationship with the venue and organize front of house and box office etc – once you have found a suitable venue that is, which isn’t straightforward either! Then having 10-12 performers and a creative team putting on multiple shows to limited audience numbers (due to the intimate nature of the piece) does create a financial challenge too. In order to cover costs we are dependent on grants and public funding, which all takes a lot of time and effort to apply for and manage.

4.  How did you approach making the performance accessible to both an English speaking and a Japanese speaking audience?

When first developing the work, I knew I wanted to make it accessible to both audiences so I decided to use both Japanese and English in the libretto (the text which the characters sing and speak). As there would be no surtitles and handing a translation of the text to an audience member would be cumbersome and pretty much impossible to follow as audiences dip in and out and choose their own route, I decided each singer’s lines/sung phrases would alternate between Japanese and English. I wrote it in a way that if you understand one language only, you can still follow the story however the nuance of the Japanese and English lines are often different. I thought it best to avoid constant direct translation, making the piece more interesting and alluding to how the characters flit between the languages and their associated cultures and ideals, prompting the questions; which language does a character use to manipulate others, to escape from their prescribed identity or to show their true feelings? The universal languages of music and dance and the theatrical staging of the work also make it accessible to both audiences, and hopefully a wider audience still. The tension between the characters, their emotions and even their personality traits are expressed through their paired instruments, the way the roles interact with the space and how they communicate, or don’t, with each other.

5.  Who would you recommend the Scholarship to?

Someone who is driven but not one-track minded. The Scholarship is not specific to one area of work or research or for advancing along one particular career path, I think it offers professional development in a holistic sense through the varied opportunities and experiences presented. Therefore if there is something you want to do, you need to do some research and groundwork yourself and then get Daiwa on board to help, which they will and some! I’d also recommend it to someone with a good deal of patience too; learning Japanese, various customs and how to navigate the many layers of bureaucracy takes time!

6.   How has the Daiwa Scholarship affected your career?

Enormously. And that is a very honest answer. Of course the networks and connections I have been able to make through the Scholarship (directly and indirectly) and the time and resources made available through Daiwa have enabled me to further my creative practice, gain a wealth of experience and in turn have benefited my career. Though there are perhaps less quantifiable ways the Scholarship has affected my career too: I have certainly grown in confidence thanks to the Scholarship. A confidence to be bold and undertake big projects (and risks!) for the sheer desire to make stuff happen. A confidence to call myself “a composer”, bolstered by the Scholarship selecting me for this very work and presenting me as such. A confidence that I can learn, explore and attain new skills which up until now I wouldn’t have dreamed I could. It has been a very empowering experience.

7.  What would you like to explore next?

Through developing THE鍵KEY, I have realized that I really love collaborating, facilitating new experiences for all involved and creating multidisciplinary work, so I would love to do future projects that also engage with art forms other than music and which encourage musicians to bring their own interpretations. I’d like to further explore Japanese/western instrument pairings, theatrical work and various forms of collaboration, perhaps in an artist residency setting. I’d also like to work with current authors and create work with them; something which I am currently pursuing with a UK based writer.

https://francescalelohe.weebly.com/