.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}@media all and (max-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{width:auto!important;clear:none!important;float:none!important))You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (June 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,066 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Kurofune]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Kurofune)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Kurofune (Japanese: 黒船 kurofune, an Edo-period term meaning "black ships") is a 1940 Japanese-language western-style opera by Kosaku Yamada, which is regarded as the first Japanese opera. It is based on the Black Ships story of Tōjin Okichi [ja] a geisha "caught up in the turmoil that swept Japan in the waning years of the Tokugawa shogunate".[1][2]

The American ships, also known as the Black Ships, were steam powered, which impressed the Japanese at the time. Arriving at Shimoda, they conveyed messages to open up Japan to trade.

Synopsis[3]

The time is the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate; the place, the port of Shimoda, newly opened by the United States–Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity. The vagrant samurai Yoshida, an imperial loyalist, bursts into a drinking party of the town magistrate and officials, makes an impassioned speech calling on them to "expel the barbarians," and disappears, but the geisha Okichi, who happens to be present, is given the mission of assassinating the American consul-general. She becomes the consul's mistress, but is torn between her growing feelings for his kindness toward her and her duty to kill him. Losing patience with all this, Yoshida steals into the temple Ryosen-ji that serves as the consulate, and draws his sword. He is on the verge of killing the consul when a messenger arrives from Kyoto conveying the Emperor's desire for peace.

References

  1. ^ "'Black Ships' opera". New National Theatre Tokyo.
  2. ^ "Simon Holledge's interview with Hiroshi Oga citing the premiere of the 'Black Ships' opera". Archived from the original on 2010-05-31.
  3. ^ https://www.nntt.jac.go.jp/english/season/s347e/s347e.html