It was a good thing my family ended up getting an invitation thus not paying, because of the whole performance there were only 3 things I enjoyed, Sarah Sweeting (who was a charming Carmen), Harland Hutabarat (a loveable Escamillo, of course I have this thing for baritones), and the percussion. It would've been very bad if we had paid 350k for each of our seats.
Hikotaro Yuzuki seemed to be a good conductor, (a francophile too), if only the orchestra would look at him! The musicians seemed to pay no regard whatsoever to his presence. There was none of that magic that comes out from a conductor waving his wand. He moved his arms in big sweeps, but the sound came a second late and not to that effect. Nusantara Symphony is not my favourite orchestra, I thought I was a little biased on this, but apparently it was rather reasonable (in fact I imagine that Roux Marlet was like that before Shinichi Chiaki came about). But Yuzuki-sensei will be performing again soon, this time with Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra (of which he is the principal guest conductor), I'll be waiting for that. Now that I've read the blurb in the programme book properly, he's also the Music Director for the orchestra. Ganbatte kudasai (seeing as in Japanese they don't rely on luck).
Why oh why did he choose Symphony no.5, though? The orchestra didn't sound ready for that.
