Ozawa, the music director of the Boston Symphony, has set up an

institute to teach young musicians to play Mozart's great operas. He

hopes the undercurrents intended by the 18th century composer--be they

romantic, melancholic or tragic--will stir the students enough to

overcome their cultural reserve and play with more zeal.

``I'm sure I was a timid Japanese student, but I worked in Europe

and America,'' said Ozawa, who in 2002 will become music director of

the Vienna State Opera. ``The [final] thing I want to do in my life is

to teach this.''

It is this reserve that can hinder otherwise highly proficient

students and musicians in Japan, Ozawa believes. It's difficult to put

his finger on exactly what's missing--it's not, for example, a matter

of a violinist hitting a string too high on the bow, or beginning a

second later than he's supposed to. It's about communicating, he says,

the ability to move an audience that distinguishes a good from a

brilliant performance. He recalled once hearing Czech musicians who

weren't perfect technically but nevertheless produced a powerful,

stirring concert.

Perhaps because of Japan's prevailing Confucian philosophy, he

mused, with its reverence for hierarchy and respect for elders, the

culture tends to encourage reserve. Japanese don't ``break their own

wall to go out to express themselves.''

Ozawa's three-year program, which has just gotten off the ground,

is aimed strictly at music students. However, it strikes a much

broader chord in Japanese society, where individuality and creativity

are often stifled.

Japan excels in manufacturing and perfecting technologies, for

example, but often comes up short when it comes to nurturing inventors

and entrepreneurs. The country's education system is based on rote

memorization, making Japanese ``very good foot soldiers but not

imaginative leaders,'' said Tadashi Yamamoto, president of the

nonprofit Japan Center for International Exchange.

``You are taught not only to suppress your own thinking but to

suppress emotions as well,'' said Yamamoto, who directed a commission

appointed by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi that recently called for

encouraging creativity, individuality and a ``pioneer spirit'' as

Japan's top goals in the 21st century.

Yamamoto applauds Ozawa's efforts as exactly the type of

inspirational programs the commission supports. For two months each

year, Ozawa and 10 others will teach about 40 skilled students to

perform operatic music. Ozawa is hoping that the inherent blend of

drama and music in opera will inspire the young musicians, some of

whom have never been to the opera.

Though performed in Japan for more than a century, opera is not as

ubiquitous here as in Europe or the U.S. Ozawa's program will perform

one opera each year, beginning with ``The Marriage of Figaro,'' then

``Cosi fan tutte'' and ``Don Giovanni.''

Ozawa is mostly going on gut instinct that it will work. Even he is

not sure if creativity or passion can be taught or learned, or is

really a product of the heart. Or experience. Or nature. ``This is

really the question,'' he said. Any time he teaches someone chamber

music, he tries to find out who the musician is and ``find out what I

want to get out [of him].''

Was the stirring performance by the Czechs stimulated by a history

of political upheaval and resistance that might have made performers

more passionate than those in Japan, where most people these days live

comfortable lives in a society with little crime or disorder?

Ozawa is not sure.

``If you're hungry, then you really want to do something,'' he

said. ``If you're happy and you go home to warm food and a bed waiting

. . . well. . . .'' He stretches out his hands without completing the

sentence.

Ozawa is anything but reserved: He wears his shaggy salt-and-pepper

hair almost shoulder length. He is known for wearing tunics and casual

clothes when conducting the Boston Symphony, which he joined 27

seasons ago. He's dynamic and emotional on stage, and charming and

funny when talking with a group in fluent, though often broken,

English.

But he also has had far from a typical Japanese upbringing,

starting with his birth in Manchuria, China, in 1935 while his

nation's troops occupied the region. His father also was a rebel:

Working for a Japanese railroad company as a dentist, he became

increasingly sympathetic to Chinese resistance against Japan's

aggression. Following an attempt on his life, the father took his

family back to Japan. Ozawa was 6.

``I had a problem to become a real Japanese right away,'' Ozawa

said.

He began playing the piano, but quit after breaking two fingers in

rugby and switched to conducting. He studied at Tokyo's Toho School of

Music. Awards in international competitions brought him to the

attention of Leonard Bernstein, who in 1961 appointed Ozawa assistant

conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

But Ozawa was humiliated when he returned to Tokyo in the early

1960s and was branded ``too Western.'' When he arrived to conduct

Japan's NHK Orchestra in a special performance, the orchestra pit was

empty: The musicians were boycotting him.

``I thought maybe I would not come back'' to Japan, he said. But he

was supported by many other artists, such as fashion designer Hanae

Mori, and he relented. He now spends several months a year in Tokyo.

Among his other achievements in Japan was starting the

international Saito Kinen music festival in memory of Hideo Saito, his

teacher at the Toho school--and a key figure in bringing Western music

and technique to Japan. Ozawa also runs a clinic there, teaching

chamber music.

Most of the musicians selected for the opera program are in their

20s. Is that too late in life to learn passion? Ozawa doesn't think

so.

``When you talk about emotion and life experience, you can't teach

that to an 11-year-old. How do you explain to a 12-year-old what

pathetic is, or the depth of Mahler's Ninth Symphony ending when he

says goodbye to the world?''

Ozawa only started performing opera at age 30, when he went to

Austria for the first time. ``I went crazy,'' he said.

The experience changed everything, including the way he conducted.

``If you don't play opera, you may never know the beauty of Puccini,

Verdi or Wagner, or really understand Mozart.''

One of the young musicians he taught at the Saito Kinen festival,

19-year-old violinist Kota Nagahara, will be among the 40 symphony

members already chosen for the opera program, which Ozawa dubbed

Ongaku-Juku, meaning music cram school or tutorial.

``Ozawa is full of energy about everything,'' said Nagahara, who

began playing at age 5 to accompany his mother on piano. The young

musician hasn't had the money or time to see opera in Japan, where it

is quite expensive. But he seems to have the enthusiasm Ozawa is

talking about, if a phone interview is any indication. Asked to

compare the playing styles of Japanese with foreigners, he said:

``Japanese musicians are trying to kill their own feelings, so they

cannot express themselves when they are playing the music. They've got

to change.''

But when Nagahara is playing the violin, ``it's just so fun, I'm

just doing what I like. So I'm expressing myself as much as foreigners

do, and I don't feel shy or embarrassed about it.''