Yoko Kawahara (born 3 September 1939) is a Japanese operatic

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

who made a career first in Germany, then also appearing internationally at opera houses and festivals. Her repertory includes parts by

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

as well as contemporary music, in both opera and concert.

Career

Kawahara was born in Tokyo. She studied voice with Toshiko Toda, and made her debut in 1958 as Fiordiligi in Mozart's ''

Così fan tutte (''All Women Do It, or The School for Lovers''), K. 588, is an opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was first performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte w ...

'' at the in Tokyo. She moved to Germany and continued her studies at the

Musikhochschule Köln A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music academy, music faculty, college of music, music department (of a larger in ...

with Ellen Bosenius. After a performance as Pamina in Mozart's '' Die Zauberflöte'' at the

Bonn Opera Theater Bonn (also known as the Stadttheater Bonn) is the municipal theatre company of Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is an organization that produces operas, musicals, ballets, plays, and concerts. It operates several performance venue ...

in 1969, she stayed with the company for three years. She appeared in 1972 at the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amad ...

with the Wiener Singakademie in Honegger's oratorio

Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher ''Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher'' (''Joan of Arc at the Stake'') is an oratorio by Arthur Honegger, originally commissioned by Ida Rubinstein. It was set to a libretto by Paul Claudel, and the work runs about 70 minutes. It premiered on 12 May 1938 in ...

, conducted by Martin Turnovsky. She appeared as a guest internationally, including the Bavarian State Opera, the

Frankfurt Opera The Oper Frankfurt (Frankfurt Opera) is a German opera company based in Frankfurt. Opera in Frankfurt am Main has a long tradition, with many world premieres such as Franz Shrek's ''Der ferne Klang'' in 1912, '' Fennimore und Gerda'' by Frede ...

, the

Rouen Opera House The Rouen Opera House, formally known as Rouen Normandy Opera House -Theatre of Arts (French: ''Opéra de Rouen Normandie - Théâtre des arts'') is a French opera house located in Rouen, Normandy. It is home to the Rouen Philharmonic Orchestra. ...

and the Nikikai Opera where she appeared as Euridice in Gluck's ''

Orfeo ed Euridice ' (; French: '; English: ''Orpheus and Eurydice'') is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on Orpheus, the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the ''azione teatrale'', mea ...

''. Kawahara appeared at the

Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...

, first in 1972 as Voice of the Forest Bird in ''

Siegfried Siegfried is a German-language male given name, composed from the Germanic elements ''sig'' "victory" and ''frithu'' "protection, peace". The German name has the Old Norse cognate ''Sigfriðr, Sigfrøðr'', which gives rise to Swedish ''Sigfrid' ...

'', Woglinde in '' Der Ring des Nibelungen'', and a Flower Maiden in '' Parsifal''. She performed the first two parts in the production '' Jahrhundertring'', celebrating the festival's centenary in 1976, conducted by

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

and staged by Patrice Chéreau. On 3 October 1979 she was the soprano soloist in the first concert of Max Reger's unfinished '' Dies irae'', part of the fragment of a Latin Requiem composed in 1914.

Roland Bader Roland Bader (born 24 August 1938) is a German choral conductor and music director. He is the principal guest conductor of the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra and the Opera Krakowska, officially authorized as representative for their guest performan ...

conducted the NDR Chor and

NDR Sinfonieorchester The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (german: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester) is a German radio orchestra. Affiliated with the ''Norddeutscher Rundfunk'' (NDR; North German Broadcasting), the orchestra is based at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Ge ...

, with soloists

Marga Höffgen Marga Anna Johanna Höffgen (26 April 1921 – 7 July 1995) was a German contralto, known for singing oratorios, especially the Passions by Johann Sebastian Bach, and operatic parts such as Erda in Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', performed a ...

, Hans-Dieter Bader and

Nikolaus Hillebrand Nikolaus Hillebrand (born 1948) is a German operatic bass-baritone, who was engaged at the Bavarian State Opera, among others, and appeared at international festivals such as Bayreuth and Taormina. As a boy he was a member of the Regensburger Doms ...

. The concert was recorded live. On 25 April 1982 she appeared in the premiere of Udo Zimmermann's ''

Die wundersame Schustersfrau ''Die wundersame Schustersfrau'' (''The Wondrous Cobbler's Wife'') is an opera in two acts by Udo Zimmermann, with a libretto which he wrote with Eberhard Schmidt based on the 1930 Spanish play ''La zapatera prodigiosa'', a ''farsa violenta'' by ...

'' at the Schwetzingen Festival, in the role of Die grüne Nachbarin (The green neighbour). In 1986 she appeared in New York with the New York Philharmonic in the opening of their ''Horizons'' series at Avery Fisher Hall, singing excerpts from Ligeti's opera '' Le Grand Macabre'', conducted by Zoltán Peskó.

References

External links

"Geburtstage im September 2014 / 3.9. Yoko Kawahara wird 75"
(in German) '' Der Neue Merker'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Kawahara, Yoko 1939 births Japanese operatic sopranos Singers from Tokyo Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln alumni Living people 20th-century Japanese women opera singers