Jesus Christ Superstar · Editions / The Temple
Jesus Christ Superstar
My record and recording collection
Records, digital files and stories behind the versions I own.
After a long time in preparation, this collection sees the light of day, coinciding with the 56th anniversary of the original Jesus Christ Superstar album, released in the United Kingdom on October 16, 1970.
Machine translation. Interface and sheet texts are machine-translated from the Spanish original and may contain errors. titles, catalogue numbers and other catalogue data are not altered.
"The Temple"
My Jesus Christ Superstar collection, organized by recording. Each card shows the formats I own. Physical editions retain their details; digital files are not assigned to a particular pressing.
TORA Project · K2 International Group
2019 (unconfirmed)
In my collection
Video
Full information
I hold a video of this TORA Project performance, directed by Katsuo Kanamori. K2 International Group, the Japanese organization sharing it, is based in Yokohama and also names Kanamori on its website. The credits include Motomu Kobori, Miki Odo and Tomoko Gomi without assigning characters. The year and location of this performance are unconfirmed. It is not a Shiki production.
The staging uses a black metal structure and performers dressed in black. The recording has Japanese subtitles.
K2 and Katsuo Kanamori also appear in the M6 MUSICAL ACT project in Yokohama in December 2019. It is very likely that performance, but no source found confirms that this video records it.
The separately documented M6 project of 2019: K2 announced Jesus Christ Superstar Highlights on 21 December at 18:10 in Shinko Chuo Hiroba, as part of NIGHT SYNC YOKOHAMA, and on 22 December at 14:00 in Negishi LIVE BOX M6. ACY credits Katsuo Kanamori with direction, Odoru Natsuko with choreography, Chihiro Owada with musical direction and production, and Tomohide Sayama with drums. These details concern the M6 production; they do not by themselves identify the performance in the TORA video.
M6’s own activity report (March 20, 2020) tells it in detail. Rehearsals ran from late August to late December 2019. They started with more than thirty people, children included, with no score and no choreography prepared. In all, 61 young people took part in the program and 25 made it to the final performances.
The report also includes a talk with four participants (December 26, 2019). Nana remembers diving deep into the world of the piece, with the songs, from Superstar to Overture, still running through her head. Yoshinari tells how, about two weeks before the premiere, a role was created just for him: a jester to entertain King Herod. Kōki compares the two shows: outdoors the stage was wider; at M6 the ceiling was lower and the audience much closer. Kanamori, in the same report, describes a near-futuristic stage full of light and projected shadows, with movement that followed the theme of each number.
In the order in which I keep the recording, the performance runs through twenty-one numbers: Overture, Heaven on Their Minds, What's the Buzz, Strange Thing Mystifying, Everything's Alright, This Jesus Must Die, Hosanna, Simon Zealotes, The Temple, I Don't Know How to Love Him, Damned for All Time, The Last Supper, Gethsemane, The Arrest, Peter's Denial, Pilate and Christ, King Herod's Song, Could We Start Again Please, Judas' Death, Trial Before Pilate and Superstar, followed by the closing credits.
What came next is told by a K2 article from December 2022. In 2020 the group performed a selection of Beauty and the Beast outdoors, at Branch Yokohama Nanbu Market. In 2021 they revived it, with changes, at their own M6 space. From the second year they left the external teachers and began creating on their own, until they became “the musical that doesn’t do musicals”. With this documentation, the 2019 production stands as the project’s first staging.