Thursday, June 30, 1921: Soprano singer, Kazuko Sasada was born.

On Thursday, June 30, 1921, Kazuko Sasada, a vocalist, was born in Osaka. In 1942 (Showa 17), he graduated from Tokyo Music School (now Tokyo University of the Arts) and joined the Fujiwara Revue at the same time. In the first year of her career, from November 23 to 26 in 1942, she played the heroine, Elsa von Brabant, at the Tokyo Kabuki-za Theater in Japan’s premiere of Wagner-composed opera Lohengrin. This was the 16 th performance of the Fujiwara Opera, and FUJIWARA no Yoshie, the founder of the Fujiwara Opera, not to mention the main tenor, and the Arthurian legend of the Swan Knight, Lauengrin. Manfred Gurlitt conducted the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.

The Pacific War had already begun in November 1942, when the Fujiwara Opera had its first performance in Japan of “Lohengrin.” After the Battle of Midway in June of the same year, the war gradually began to deteriorate, but the Japanese people did not realize that. For four days from November 12 to 15th, the Third Battle of Solomon Sea off Guadalcanal was fought in the South Sea Front, and the Imperial Navy lost the battleships Hiei, Kirishima, and the cruiser Kinugasa. The 38 Division of the Army landed on Guadalcanal and became isolated. In December of the following month, the Cabinet decided to withdraw from Guadalcanal.

After the war, Kazuko Sasada went on stage more than 1000 times as a prima representing the Fujiwara Revue. He also suffered from cancer three times, and is known to have recovered with surgery each time. He died at the age of 2007, 86.