Yasuko Nagata

Life and career

1. 17 April 1935 — born in Nagoya, Naka ward, the third daughter of Hideo and Nayo Nagata.
2. Her family runs the shop Nagataya Honten in Okazaki, founded in 1890 by her great-grandfather Nagata Matsujirō. The building on Denma-dōri, the old Tōkaidō road through Okazaki, was the only one on the street to survive the war.
3. Studied voice at the Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating there, and then at the Berlin University of Music.
4. April 1964 — earliest known recording: she sings “Hiru” by Hirota Ryūtarō on the sonosheet series “Nihon no Melody 12 — Haru no Uta” for Chikuma Shobō.
5. Stage debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, followed by a permanent engagement at the Theater der Freien Hansestadt Bremen.
6. 30 December 1964 — married Detlef Foljanty at the Berlin-Steglitz register office.
7. 1965 — her daughter Natsumi is born.
8. Concert work as an oratorio and lieder singer, based in West Berlin, in several European countries and in Japan. Recordings for German and foreign broadcasters.
9. A close friend of the composer Maki Ishii (1936–2003), who like her worked between Berlin and Tokyo.
10. Taught at the Berlin school of church music and at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin.
11. 18 February 1984 — Ulrike Ottinger’s “Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse” premieres at the International Forum of the Berlinale; she sings in the press-reception scene.
12. Later taught voice at the Kyoto City University of Arts and at the Aichi University of the Arts.
13. 1985 — the LP VOXEE VXL-85112 is released: Schumann, Liederkreis op. 39, and Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten op. 15.
14. 1 April 1987 — appointed professor of voice at the Kyoto City University of Arts, having been associate professor until then.
15. 4 March 1988 — died in Kyoto, Nishikyō ward, while in office. She was 52.
16. March 1989 — the music faculty of her university prints an obituary for her in the first issue after her death: Kurata Hiroyuki in “Harmonia” no. 19, pages 2–6.
17. Sources: birth, marriage and death from the Okazaki city register extracts (1964) and the Kyoto city certificate of acceptance (1988); the appointment from the Kyoto city personnel notice of 1 April 1987; the shop from the Okazaki city property certificate of 1958; the 1964 recording from the National Diet Library catalogue; the 1984 film from the director’s own listing. The friendship with Maki Ishii is a family account. The undated stations follow the 1985 sleeve text reproduced in full below; it gives no years, so where they fall between the dated events is not documented.