Vienna resterateur starts an opera festival
OperaThe conductor and violinist Joji Hattori retired a while back to Vienna to run a Japanese restaurant on the Krugergasse.
But he still conducts the Vienna Chamber Orchestra on the side, as it were, and he’s now opened an opera venture.
The Wiener Opernsommer Belvedere consists, in its first season, of ten open-air performances of Don Giovanni, conducted by Joji, who is also the festival’s artistic director.
‘A large selection of food trucks will offer culinary delights,’ he promises.
All is revealed here.
So is he a restauranteur, conductor, festival director or entrepreneur – or all four? I’ve heard of having a portfolio career, but that’s quite a spread. He must like arias whilst he eats… good luck to him if he can keep up with the tempo of that lot.
When you have inherited big money from the Seiko watch empire, you can be anything you want to be. It’s their world and we are simply onlookers.
Dan, you can judge for yourself whether money can buy musicality or violin playing technique like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODDeHZv5aQ
and as regard to conducting, this guy has conducted even a few times at the Vienna State Opera or the Philharmonia repeatedly . This kind of musical institutions would never let an amateur conduct even if they gave them billions
The word is “restaurateur”.