Masterpiece, fridge magnet, phone case … opera: how Hokusai’s The Great Wave hit the stage

He survived a stroke, a lightning strike, a fire – and created one of the world’s most recognisable images. Now the Japanese artist’s ‘wild, fascinating’ life has inspired an operaOpera has inspired many of the 20th century’s greatest artists to create extraordinary sets. Oskar Kokoschka designed a Magic Flute for Salzburg and a Ballo in maschera for Florence. Salvador Dalí produced a controversial Salome for London; David Hockney’s designs for Glyndebourne’s Rake’s Progress complement Stravinsky’s sound-world so miraculously that they are still in use 50 years after their creation. Marc Chagall’s ceiling fresco for Paris’s Opéra Garnier and murals for the New York Met testify to the intimate connection between opera and painting.And yet remarkably few operas portray visual artists. Something about their painstaking work seems to resist representation in this most extravagant of artforms. Only two operas about artists are regularly performed: Hindemith’s Mat