Morning Blossoms is an extraordinary beautiful new original opera, fusing the disciplines of opera, dance, and drama in a compelling performance about parents, children, families, and communities separated by the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

The narrative, inspired by true events, is largely located inside and nearby a primary school that got totally destructed by the waters of the tsunami and became a communal grave for all its pupils, while, astonishingly, the sole survivor was the children’s guardian, their teacher.

Act One is rather cheerful and dynamic, full of happenings and quick transitions between scenes. It ends when the tsunami wave hits the school building. The aesthetics of the lighting are of a typical large-scale musical show, the colours are saturated at times, thin haze is used to emphasize lighting beams and accentuate break up gobos and moving beams of light.

Act Two unfolds the tragedy and brings a different palette of emotions, slower tempo, and tension with new aesthetics of light. Here, the parents are confronted with the distress concerning their children’s sake, struggling to maintain hope and fight despair, and later, reach a degree of reconcilement that is disturbed by the tenacious identification of victims.