Credit: Far Out / Spotify

Watch the final performance by Ryuichi Sakamoto in ‘Opus’ trailer

Tue 29 August 2023 9:36, UK

The late Japanese musician Ryuchi Sakamoto performed his last recorded show for the forthcoming movie Opus. The first trailer has now arrived and can be viewed via the link below.

The legendary composer and former band member of Yellow Magic Orchestra sadly passed away on March 28th, 2023, aged 71. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021, following a throat cancer diagnosis in 2014.

Sakamoto’s final live performance took place in December 2022. The concert was livestreamed for fans under the title Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022. Only one performance followed this and will be featured in Opus, which premieres at the Venice Film Festival on September 5th.

Sakamoto noted in a posthumous statement: “The project was conceived as a way to record my performances – while I was still able to perform – in a way that is worth preserving for the future. We borrowed the NHK Broadcast Center’s 509 Studio to record in, which is a place that I think offers the finest acoustics in Japan.”

“I played every piece at home, which we recorded on an iPhone to construct the overall composition of the concert that will express the progression of time from morning into night. Everything was meticulously storyboarded so that the camera positions and the lighting changed significantly with each song,” he added. “I went into the shoot a little nervous, thinking this might be my last chance to share my performance with everyone in this way. We recorded a few songs a day with a lot of care.”

“In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new grounds. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life,” he concluded.

“Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with.”

Watch the trailer for Opus here and see Sakamoto’s message below.