Haruhisa Handa talks opera and Shinto in rare interview

Enigmatic arts benefactor Harushia Handa explains what music means to him.

HANDA OPERA

Shadowed by a towering, one-eyed Queen Nefertiti, and watched by an entourage of assistants, minders, and bemused Opera Australia director Lyndon Terracini, Haruhisa Handa, 64, leans forward, angles his jaw to the setting sun, tips his shaggy black head backwards and opens his mouth. Out, in a rich baritone, come the opening strains of Torna a Surriento, the doleful 1902 Neapolitan classic sung by everyone from Pavarotti to Meat Loaf: “vide’o mare quant’e bello / spira tantu sentimento…”

This impromptu recital stops traffic, such as it is, on Sydney Harbour. Jaws drop and heads turn among a passing stream of live camels, tourists, production assistants pushing wagons of props for tonight’s production of Aida — gold sphinxes, Egyptian headdresses, slinky cats — and Australian Federal Police with bomb-sniffing dogs preparing for Tony Abbott’s presence among the audience. Handa, the enigmatic backer of the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour series, smiles beatifically as a tourist approaches, clapping her hands in glee: “Oh I just love that song!” He looks happy to offer more: singing opera, after all, is all in a day’s work for the Japanese multi-millionaire businessman, social crusader, author, philanthropist and ordained Shinto priest.

Over the years, Handa, a good friend of American super-soprano Renee Fleming (“we share the same philosophy”) has performed on the Great Wall of China, at the UN, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, for the Pope and 60,000 Catholic pilgrims with his 40-strong, kimono-clad choir at the Vatican, and in Carnegie Hall (he crooned Some Enchanted Evening dressed in traditional formal Japanese attire). Now he can add Sydney Harbour to his CV. To Handa, “song is life, life is song”, as he will say in a speech to the Prime Minister at Kirribilli House shortly after we speak (he will accompany Abbott as his guest later this evening). “If there was a world without music, I would be like a fish without water in it.”

It’s an unexpected start to a long-awaited interview with the Australian arts scene’s most mysterious benefactor. Despite pouring millions into culture, sport and education across this country over the decades (his Australian accountant Mike Gasson once estimated Handa’s largesse totalled $9 million in 1990s-era Western Australia alone; millions more have since been funnelled into everything from singing prizes to golf tournaments and endowing human rights chairs), Handa has proved an elusive figure to pin down.

His name is splashed all over giant HOSH (Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour) banners, but he doesn’t give interviews and has, incredibly, never been to see any of the four major operas he’s backed since he partnered Destinations NSW and Opera Australia with a $3 million donation in 2012 (Terracini typically flies to Tokyo with a DVD). His friend Geoff Gibbs once said: “Those of us who are very close to him talk to him on email or fax and his assistant translates for him ... it’s like trying to contact the Queen.”

Review has chased an interview with Handa for almost two years, tracking him in recent months via emails to his contacts in places as diverse as a Handa-funded emergency hospital in Cambodia, the headquarters of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago and the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. All requests, however, were politely met with the same response: “Dr Handa does not give interviews.”

He is surrounded by protective minders, headed by executive assistant Midori Miyazaki. She’s here today, keeping an eye on proceedings; she seems just as taken back as the rest of those assembled as he bursts into song after a request from Review.

So why all the media shyness until now? It’s hard to know. Handa comes to Australia from time to time — he has a home in Sydney’s Rose Bay — to attend golf events (he is patron of Golf Australia, and supports the Handa Women’s Australian Open, among other things), and he reportedly turned up in full Shinto regalia at The Ring in Melbourne. Perhaps burned by a series of Australian press reports a decade ago reporting allegations of tax evasion made in the 1990s by Japanese tax authorities (Gasson told The Australian in 2002 that the investigation was later dropped “and did not result in any penalties, or additional tax paid through misdemeanour”), he decided to clam up (though he’s known to speak to the Australian golf press, which in turn speaks glowingly of him). Observers have called him Mr Mysterious.

But here is Handa today, ebullient, charming, distinguished in his navy suit, shocking everyone when he finally appears, given his notorious unpredictability (Terracini says he’s flown to Tokyo for a 11am meeting with Handa, only to finally see him at 3am). He is trailed by a trio of petite assistants. It’s a relatively small entourage today: retired Curtin University academic Jim Ife, who travelled with him in Cambodia, says it normally includes secretaries, assistants, a video camera operator and a photographer to document his every move.

Eager to inspect his investment, Handa makes a slow tour of the steep, wet stage (“Hmm, very dangerous,” he cheerfully notes), sending his minders into conniptions as he peers down pits, steps over wires and skirts its edges (“Sensei…” warns Miyazaki). He frowns at Nefertiti’s deliberately damaged visage (“Why for only one eye?” he demands, “eye is broken”), and peppers Terracini with questions: “Where is conductor sitting? Where is orchestra?”

In the flesh, Handa has the heavy, ivory face of a carved idol and the imperial air of a modern shogun. A pair of thick black eyebrows counterbalance a stern mouth. After taking a seat hastily wiped dry by a minder, he presents Review with a copy of the speech he will give at Kirribilli House. Among other things, it cites Einstein (“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician”) and Moliere (“Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive”). He grins at the mention of the latter quip: the HOSH series has been a pricey outlay for him and recently he inked a new three-year agreement, but no matter; he says he is pleased to be a private benefactor here, especially at a time “when you have reduced exports to China, Australian mining is not doing so well. I’m really happy to be supporting arts and culture.”

His ultimate aim, as he will tell Abbott, is “that opera neither be seen as a noise or as expensive. Music has the power to transform human hearts and minds, to draw us inward and upward to our better selves.”

It’s music to the ears of the nearby Terracini, who jumped on a plane along with former OA chief executive Adrian Collette to call on Handa in Tokyo several years ago after hearing about him from a mutual friend. He says Handa immediately grasped his vision for a large-scale outdoor opera extravaganza pitched at the masses: “We turned up, had the meeting, and he said: OK.” A snap decision? “Yes, he liked the idea from the start. He shared my vision — I felt we needed to play to as many people as possible in Australia, and right across the spectrum, including all ages, all races.

“He’s incredibly perceptive, a really intuitive guy, so if he doesn’t like people, or he doesn’t feel what we’re doing is motivated by the right reasons, he won’t do it. Fortunately, we got on really well.” It’s a mutual appreciation society: Handa smiles at him and says, “Lyndon and me, we are the same. I started 13 companies in Japan, Australia, England from nothing. Everything comes from inspiration, vision.”

Now, Handa and Terracini have big new plans for their baby. Since its debut in 2012 with La Traviata — followed by Carmen, Madama Butterfly and now Aida, which closestomorrow — HOSH has gone on to become a blue-chip cultural event on the arts calendar, delivering $20m to the NSW economy.

Aida has sold more than 50,000 tickets, “so we’ve already passed our break-even point. It’s by far the most successful opera in HOSH we’ve had by a long way,” Terracini says.

And now the enterprise is set to take on an international incarnation. In the next six months, Terracini will announce a new Handa-backed opera based on the HOSH model to debut overseas, with OA to take a cut of the revenues. Where will it be: San Francisco? Chicago? Asia?

“It’s not Singapore. Maybe in Asia, but a Handa opera somewhere else will be happening, and will be pretty amazing.”

He’s also bullish about the growth in international broadcasting rights. “Butterfly was in cinemas all over Europe, and been in America and did very well, and obviously we’re hoping (Aida) will do even better. We will do another very big opera next year. It’s very exciting.”

So, who exactly is Haruhisa Handa? Terracini calls him a “fascinating character.” The head of percussion at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Tim White, who watched Handa play the taiko drums at the opening of WAAPA’s Handa Percussion Studio, says “he’s the sort of person who makes things happen”.

Ife, the inaugural Haruhisa Handa professor of human rights education at Curtin University, says the businessman works his staff hard but is “very generous”, treating them to lavish restaurant meals: “I think he sees himself as a true renaissance man … Every year he produced a book outlining his philanthropic activities, and also a book of his own artwork. He presented the centre with copies of these each year, and also a video of him singing in a Japanese production of La Traviata.”

The chief executive of Golf Australia, Stephen Pitt, describes him as “a true jokester and full of vitality and laughter. There are no dull moments in his company and his pure delight in breaking into song is infectious.”

Handa wears his eccentricities proudly — there are reports he has a Steinway in every room of every home he owns in the world, that he sends his secretaries out to find fertile fishing spots (he’s a keen angler), does ballet to de-stress, and sleeps at odd hours; baritone Gregory Yurisich has said he would give Handa singing lessons at the businessman’s Tokyo home at 3am. On the web, he is everywhere, popping up next to former PM John Howard one day, actress Laura Linney and music legend Quincy Jones the next. His friends include former World Bank officer Katherine Marshall, singer Michael Bolton (Handa sang at his Singapore concert) and former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who sent birthday greetings last month at an exhibition of Handa’s calligraphy in Tokyo attended by a slate of Japanese politicians. Stars flock to perform in his charity concerts, from Fleming, whom he sang a Don Giovanni duet with last year in Tokyo, to Deep Purple vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. Powerful supporters such as Australian university academics Gibbs and Leonie Kramer, and Margaret Thatcher’s former secretary Tim Lankester are often appointed to senior positions at Handa’s charitable organisation the International Foundation for Arts and Culture, set up in 1996 with branches in the US, Britain, Japan and Australia.

The Tokyo-based businessman first popped up on the Australian arts radar in 2002 following his gift of $1m to the Perth International Arts Festival. But he has been quietly donating money since the 1980s, particularly in WA, where he built a portfolio of business interests, including a 400-berth marina, a travel business, and a hobby farm in Byford, south of Perth, complete with a flying fox and a camel called Cairo. Over the years, Handa has supported the Australian Singing Competition, donated $1.4m million to the now defunct Australian Opera Studio, and given a reported $400,000 to build the Handa Percussion Studio at WAAPA, as well as $750,000 towards the endowment of the Dr Haruhisa Handa chair in human rights education at Curtin University (he has honorary doctorates from both Curtin and Edith Cowan universities). He also sponsored OA’s new production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in 2013.

Terracini is amazed by Handa’s charitable efforts (“he gives 97 per cent of his money away”): internationally, these include assistance to victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide, setting up an emergency hospital in Cambodia (he is an adviser to the country’s Prime Minister), building more than 100 schools in China, hosting global summits and speaking alongside former prime ministers Tony Blair and Howard.

Born in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture in 1951, Handa was raised in humble conditions as the eldest son of a sixth-generation sake brewer. In his 2002 thesis The Living Artist, submitted for a master of creative arts degree at WAAPA, he described himself as an “entirely wild boy” whose only interests lay in “playing, from morning to night”. He would spend hours trying to catch sparrows with a self-made rubber gun, then flies with a pair of chopsticks and, later, frogs and bats.

Not naturally academic, he failed his university entrance examinations and began what he calls his “ronin” life (the life of a failed university candidate); paradoxically, this setback belatedly sparked in him a love of learning.

He attended Doshisha University, where he received a degree in economics, and started his first business at age 26, selling stationery and office equipment; by his mid-30s he was wealthy (his current empire includes management consultancies, publishing companies, cram schools and a giant watch retailer in Japan). This allowed him time to start pursuing his artistic interests, he says.

In 1984, Handa became chairman and spiritual leader of a Shinto-derived new religion called World Mate, reported to have more than 30,000 members — but his faith-based ventures have attracted some controversy. He has complained of Japanese government harassment of World Mate and also denied it is a cult, describing it as a “membership group, freely joined or quit”. To its followers, Shintoism is about how there is not one God, but many; within this framework, you can be your own god. For Handa, the spiritual leader of World Mate, this must seem eminently reasonable. A firm believer in reincarnation — he tells Review he has “a lifeline of 20,000 years” — he relishes the fact there’s plenty of time to achieve anything you desire.

But what lies behind his philanthropic drive? Handa says he draws on his Shinto faith for his philosophy of mixing business with arts patronage and social welfare work. He’s a fan of Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita who in 1946 founded the PHP Institute, “based on the concept of peace and happiness through prosperity”, he says.

Like Matsushita, he believes human beings need both material and spiritual prosperity, which should then be returned to society. For him, moneymaking has never proved as satisfying as giving: he taps his chest then gestures to the empty Aida stage: “You cultivate inside, you cultivate outside.”

A spiritual consciousness also drives his artistic practice. To this end, Handa has devoted much time and effort to his parallel life as artist, often performing under the name Toshu Fukami. Apart from opera, he’s trained in calligraphy, Noh theatre, Peking opera, flower arranging, the art of the tea ceremony, violin, piano and ballet. He took up many of these disciplines in his late 30s and 40s, reportedly training for up to 13 hours a day: age, he tells Review, is no barrier to learning. He’s enjoyed performing on stage with the likes of legendary Russian prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concertmaster Rainer Honeck. The British Museum hosted his calligraphy demonstration last year.

He reportedly paid $US500,000 to sing at Carnegie Hall, and £50,000 to appear at St John’s Smith Square in London.

Controversially, he will often appear in the arts events he backs: among other things, he sang with the English Chamber Orchestra in a performance excoriated by British critics; he also conducted an original composition before a performance of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder at PIAF (a musician reportedly walked out in protest). To some this is the harmless prerogative of a rich, generous man. To others it is represents a disturbingly crass commercialisation of the arts. Handa shrugs when this criticism is raised. To him, it stems from a misunderstanding rising from a clash of cultures. All his efforts, he says, spring from Japan’s long and honourable tradition of hands-on cultural patronage going back to the 19th-century emperor Meiji (“I am always inspired by him”).

The head of WAAPA, Julie Warn, backs the role of private benefactors such as Handa. But these relationships, she says, need to be looked at carefully so that “our principles are not compromised for cash”.

Asked about his performance highlights, Handa grins, citing his 1999 performance for pope John Paul II at the Vatican. “I brought my choir and I sang Ave Maria and he was very impressed. He laughed when I told him I had become a Catholic — but for two weeks only.” Handa has a special fondness for opera because, to him, it is the peak European art.

Asked about his singing career, he beams. It was first seeded when he was 40 — “I am now 64 years young” — after he organised the performance in Tokyo of an opera he had composed. His “spiritual mentor” Aiko Uematsu said Handa, rather than the professional opera singers he had invited to perform, should sing. He pulls a theatrically shocked face.

“I said, ‘Me? Really? I am 40 years old.’ She said, ‘Yes, you should.’ So I was inspired. I asked a tenor to give me lessons, to cultivate my voice for performance, and for four years I did it. But I realised if I just did lessons with a private coach there would be limitations, and then I decided to go to university.”

He completed his graduate studies in voice at the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo in 1997; Handa grins when he recalls those student days: “My classmates were 23 years old and I was 46.”

As the interview winds up, the man himself is still difficult to fathom. Whoever he might be underneath all the shape-shifting, he comes across as a charming man of formidable energy, and, it seems, genuine goodwill.

It’s hard to imagine what the future holds for someone who has already covered so much ground. Asked about a potential political career in Japan, he pulls a face, barks a laugh, then leans close and whispers conspiratorially: “Politicians, they are very boring persons.” Miyazaki jumps in alarm, shushing him and pointing at my still-running tape recorder: Handa only grins, unrepentant. “Yes. Boring.”

With that, he gives me a firm handshake, takes a final lingering look at the one-eyed Egyptian queen his largesse has provided, and strides off with his entourage, off for his date with the Prime Minister.

Opera Australia’s Aida on Sydney Harbour closes tomorrow. Aida will be released in cinemas nationally in August, and will subsequently be broadcast on Foxtel Arts and the ABC.