Kazuko Hillyer International Inc is a performing arts production and management organisation formed by Kazuko Hillyer in 1970. It produces about 25,000 events a year, and has arranged tours for a variety of clients, including the Tokyo String Quartet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Grand Kabuki, the Jewish Theater of Romania and the Zambia National Folk and Music Ensemble.
Metropolitan Opera Japan tour
The company was notably responsible for organizing the Metropolitan Opera's first tour to Japan in May–June 1975. Hillyer successfully brokered a sponsorship deal for the tour with the Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Company. The Met, which at the time was experiencing financial difficulties, jumped at a chance for three weeks of opera performances that had all costs covered and generated income for the company. The company toured Japan for three weeks, giving performances in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.
General director Schuyler Chapin and Hillyer were able to secure many of the world's leading opera singers for the tour. Their production of La traviata starred Joan Sutherland as Violetta and Robert Merrill as Germont with Sutherland's husband, Richard Bonynge, conducting. Marilyn Horne portrayed the title role in Carmen for the tour with conductor Henry Lewis, Lucine Amara is Micaela, and James McCracken as Don José. The role of Rodolfo in the tour's La bohème was alternated in performances between tenors Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti with Dorothy Kirsten as Mimi.