Rikizo Taya

Rikizo Taya: to younger generations such as Mr. Tanaka, all they remember about him is a quite wobbling voice (as he was over 80 years old) singing in many different places, such as a hospital for the aged. Every morning, he would practice his vocalization on the side of a pond in Asakusa, an old town in Tokyo. He surely was one of the prominent of the so-called 'Asakusa Opera' (a boom of opera in Japan in the 1920's, however a quite short-lived boom). As far as Mr. Tanaka knows, there must be records of him before the WW2, which he never heard. His voice, guessing from his later records, may have been quite lyrical with a limited vocal range.
I would like to thank Mr. K. Tanaka for the biographical information.

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