Some people like art to have a message. So here’s one, delivered by Katsushika Hokusai near the end of Dai Fujikura and Harry Ross’s new opera The Great Wave. ‘Remember art won’t change the world,’ sings the great painter (as incarnated by the baritone Daisuke Ohyama), and for that line alone I’d gladly have given the show five stars, if the Spectator did anything as barbaric as award stars. Words to live by, at least if you’re an artist; and the very private bliss of a life devoted to creativity is the heart, mind and dramatic engine of The Great Wave.

Is that enough to sustain a full-length opera? Opinions will vary, though the circumstances in which I saw The Great Wave were not typical – still battered and queasy from the previous night’s performance of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Detach the gut response and Fujikura’s lithe, stylish music, coupled to Ross’s humane libretto, generated a momentum and atmosphere that were effective on their own terms. The plot is simply the life of Hokusai, recounted in flashback by his daughter (and fellow artist) Katsushika Oi (Julieth Lozano Rolong). They’re engaging, warmly drawn characters, performed with spirit.

You’ve never heard a more passionate love song to a pigment

You’ve never........

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