Kikuyo AMANO from Nihonbashi Girls' High school through Opera Actress to the First Female Jazz Singer in Japan(Part1) : Her Singnificance as an Opera Actress in Modernized Japan

Noriyuki MORITA

Kikuyo AMANO entered Nihonbashi Girls' High School at the end of the Meiji Era but dropped out to enter the drama department of the Imperial theater at the tuen of the Taisho Era. As a trainee under Tamaki MIURA, a famous prima donna, and Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, an Italian director and choreographer, she studied singing,dancingand acting in the hope of becoming an opera actress. However, the western drama department of the theater failed commercially and was abolished after just a few years because opera was not popular in Japan at that time. Her efforts to play on the stage had come to nothing. THen she met both composer Kohka SASSA. and playwright, actor and stage director Takashi IBA. who were struggleing to create a new opera for the public. Inspired by these two musicians,Kikuyo finally became an opera actress in Asakusa and before long enjoyed widespread popularity among the people of modern metropolitan Tokyo. Along with working in the theater, she recorded fairytale operas and through these pioneering activities she became the first Japanese female jazz singer in the early Showa Era. "Showa kayoh" greatly benefited from her in its modem-sounding melody and rhythm. This paper. the first of two-part thesis, covers her life and activities during the early Taisho Era.

Kikuyo AMANO from Nihonbashi Girls' High school through Opera Actress to the First Female Jazz Singer in Japan(Part1) : Her Singnificance as an Opera Actress in Modernized Japan

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