Michiko de Kowa-Tanaka

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Michiko & Viktor de Kowa with Horst Ehmke (1971)

Michiko de Kowa-Tanaka , Japanese 田中 路子 , Tanaka Michiko (born July 15, 1909 in Kanda , † May 18, 1988 in Munich ), was a Japanese-Austrian actress and singer ( soprano ).

Life

Michiko Tanaka was born as the daughter of the painter Raishō Tanaka. She received her first vocal training at Tōkyō Ongaku Gakkō . During this time she began an affair with the cellist Hideo Saitō from Shin Kōkyō Gakudan (today's NHK Symphony Orchestra ), who had recently returned from Germany in 1927. Since he was married, her parents ended this relationship by sending her to Vienna to study abroad. She first learned the harp until, on the advice of Konoe Hidemaro , the new conductor of the Shin Kōkyō Gakudan , and after hearing Maria Jeritza as Salome , she applied to the State Academy of Music . One of her teachers there was Maria Ivogün . Your guardian in Vienna was the Japanese ambassador to Austria. Through him she got access to high society, where her appearance aroused the displeasure of the Japanese embassy. She came back to Japan in 1931 when she married Julius Meinl II, 40 years her senior , which earned her Austrian citizenship. This marriage ended in divorce in 1941.

In 1930 she made her debut in Die Geisha at the Graz City Theater. She later appeared on stage with Richard Tauber in Madame Butterfly and went on tour around the world. In 1935 Julius Meinl commissioned Paul Abraham 's operetta Dschainah, the girl from the dance hall , and financed her first film, Last Love . In Paris she stood in front of the camera in 1937 for Yoshiwara and in 1938 for Storm over Asia . After affairs with the playwright Carl Zuckmayer and the actor Sessue Hayakawa , she finally met the actor Viktor de Kowa there, whom she married in 1941. Her previous husband Julius Meinl was the best man. During and after the Second World War, de Kowa's house in Berlin was a contact point for many Japanese. She introduced Seiji Ozawa to Herbert von Karajan , who later became his teacher.

Michiko de Kowa was committed to a German-Japanese cultural agreement and was involved in founding the Japanese-German Society Tokyo . In 1952 she was the first Japanese woman to be honored with a plaque at the Mozart Memorial House.

Michiko de Kowa Tanaka tomb of Richard Scheibe was designed

Since her retirement she lived in Munich, most recently in a retirement home. Michiko de Kowa died there in May 1988 at the age of 78 from heart failure .

She was buried next to her husband, who died in 1973, in the state-owned Berlin cemetery Heerstraße in today's Westend district (grave location: 16-G-29). The grave monument in the form of a pagoda was created by the sculptor Richard Scheibe . Behind it are two intertwined cherry trees. Both are reminiscent of the Far Eastern culture from which the deceased came. From 1990 to 2014, Michiko de Kowa-Tanaka's final resting place was dedicated as an honorary grave for the State of Berlin . The separate dedication as an honorary grave for Viktor de Kowa, which has existed since 1980, and the associated protection of the grave complex are provisionally still valid until 2021. The Berlin Senate will then decide on an extension.

Autobiography

  • Michiko Tanaka: 私 の 歩 ん だ 道 滞 欧 二 十年 ( Watakushi no ayunda michi. Taiō nijū-nen ). Hōbunsha, 1954 (new edition: Ōzorasha, 1999, ISBN 4-7568-0887-5 )

Web links

Commons : Michiko de Kowa-Tanaka  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ de Kowa-Tanaka, Michiko. In: Berliner Bezirkslexikon, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. September 28, 2007, accessed June 23, 2008 .
  2. ↑ Angela Eder: “I'd rather be among the four in Hollywood than among the forty thousand at the cemetery”. Paul Ábraháms soccer perette Roxy and her wonderful team . S. 6/7 ( kakanien.ac.at [PDF; accessed on June 23, 2008]).
  3. ^ Walter Dobner: Rugby with music. In: The press. January 25, 2008, accessed June 23, 2008 (interview with Seiji Ozawa).
  4. ↑ Information for the members and friends of the German-Japanese Society BW eV December 2007. (Microsoft Word; 946 kB) (No longer available online.) German-Japanese Society Baden-Württemberg eV, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved June 23, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.japan-in-baden-wuerttemberg.de
  5. ↑ Michi Tanaka died in Munich. A dream couple . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Friday May 20, 1988. p. 16. Retrieved November 16, 2019
  6. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 489. Birgit Jochens, Herbert May: The cemeteries in Berlin-Charlottenburg. History of the cemetery facilities and their tomb culture . Stapp, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-87776-056-2 . P. 228.
  7. ↑ Senate Department for Environment, Transport and Climate Protection: Honorary Graves of the State of Berlin (Status: November 2018) (PDF, 413 kB), p. 46. Accessed on November 16, 2019. Submission - for information - on the recognition and further preservation of graves Well-known and deserving personalities as honorary graves in Berlin (PDF, 158 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 14/1607 of November 1, 2001, p. 4. Accessed on November 16, 2019. Carolin Brühl: Not for eternity . In: Berliner Morgenpost . Sunday November 22, 2015. Retrieved November 16, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Kowa-Tanaka, Michiko de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tanaka, Michiko; 田中 路子 (Japanese); Meinl, Michiko
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese-Austrian actress and singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Kanda
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1988
Place of death Munich