Miyoshi Sugimachi
American soprano singer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miyoshi Sugimachi (April 20, 1905[1] – July 3, 1983), born Miyoshi Natori and later known as Miyoshi Yorita, was a Japanese-American soprano singer who toured internationally in the 1920s and 1930s.
April 20, 1905
Miyoshi Sugimachi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Miyoshi Natori April 20, 1905 Fujimi, Nagano prefecture, Japan |
| Died | July 3, 1983 (aged 78) Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Other names | Miyoshi Yorita, Mimi Yorita, Madame Sugi Machi |
| Occupation | Singer |
Early life and education
Natori was born in Fujimi, Nagano prefecture, Japan, and raised in Seattle, Washington,[2] the daughter of Ryoryo Natori[3] and Oriko Ono. She studied voice in Italy, and with Guido Caselotti.[4]
Career
Sugimachi, a lyric soprano,[5] sang on radio programs in Seattle and Los Angeles in the 1920s,[6] and with the Seattle Civic Opera Company.[7] "Sugimachi has a brilliant voice of marvelous range and the operatic airs bring out the purity and quality of her voice in a remarkable manner, more so perhaps over radio than in any other way," reported a Los Angeles Times writer in 1928.[6]
Sugimachi performed and studied in Italy from 1928 to 1931,[8] including a starring role in Madama Butterfly in Milan.[9] She gave a concert in Vancouver in 1930,[10] sang at a Los Angeles reception for Prince and Princess Takematsu in 1931,[11] and starred again as Madame Butterfly in a 1932 Los Angeles and San Francisco productions of the Puccini opera.[12][13] In 1933 she starred in Sakura, an "opera-pageant" written by her husband, Yaemitsu Sugimachi, and composer Claude Lapham,[14] in its premiere at the Hollywood Bowl.[15] In 1934, she sang at a concert to benefit a Japanese church youth program in Pasadena.[16] She also sang in a production of Sakura in Portland, Oregon, in 1936.[17] Also in 1936, she was in talks to appear in a film about her own career.[18] She made recordings in Japan in the 1930s.[9][19] In 1937, she was signed to sing the role of Madame Butterfly at New York's Hippodrome Theatre.[4] She sang the role again in Los Angeles in 1939, directed by Caselotti.[20]
Personal life
In 1925, Miyoshi Natori married Japanese-born journalist Yaemitsu Sugimachi.[21] They divorced in the 1930s; their daughter Mikki died in 1958.[22] Her second husband was Goro Yorita; they married in 1947.[23] She became a naturalized American citizen in 1979. Her second husband died in 1982, and she died in 1983, at the age of 78, in Seattle.[24][3] There is a tape recording of a 1967 interview with Sugimachi in the University of Washington Libraries special collections.[25]