Miura in 1917Statue of Tamaki Miura in Glover Garden, Nagasaki, Japan
Tamaki Miura (三浦 環, Miura Tamaki, néeShibata (柴田) February 22, 1884 – May 26, 1946), was a Japanese opera singer who performed as Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
Early life
Miura was born the first daughter of Shibata Mōho and Shibata Towa (née Nagata) on February 22, 1884, in Tokyo, Japan. Shibata, a music lover had his daughter learn Japanese traditional dance and music. In her high school days, Miura set her mind to live a professional musician life under influence of her musical teacher Sugiura Chika, an alumna of Tokyo Music School. Just before Miura entered Tokyo Music School in 1900, she married an army medical officer Fujii Zen'ichi, whom her father Mōho had urged her to wed. They later divorced in 1907, after she graduated and started her professional career.
At Tokyo Music School, Miura learned piano, singing, and violin. When Japan held its first opera performance in 1903 at the auditorium of Tokyo Music School, Miura had a role while a student and gained a reputation. In 1904 she graduated Tokyo Music School and soon was employed with its faculty, first as an assistant and later as an associate professor. She built her musical career both as an educator and a performer.
Musical career
Tamaki made her professional operatic debut in Tokyo in 1911. In 1913 she married with a prospect young medical doctor Miura, and the next year went to Europe to perform and study along her husband. First they went to Berlin and then moved to London after Japan and Germany declared war on each other (World War I). In London she got a chance: she was first cast as Cio-Cio-San by the innovative director Vladimir Rosing as part of his Allied Opera Season held in May and June 1915 at the London Opera House.[1]
In 1924, Miura returned to the United States to perform with the San Carlo Opera Company. Two years later she again went to Chicago to create the title role in Aldo Franchetti's Namiko-San. After this she took part in various tours and sang in Italy (March 1931 she performed at the Teatro Verdi of Pisa with the famous tenor Armando Bini, at Carani in Sassuolo, Modena in Livorno, Florence, Lucca, Pistoia, Torino, Novi Ligure, Rimini) before returning to Japan in 1932.