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Riyoko Ikeda
Riyoko Ikeda is a manga artist, author, and vocalist. She made her debut in 1967 with Bara Yashiki no Shojo (The Maiden of the Rose Mansion)In 1972, her series The Rose of Versailles began running in Margaret, the shôjô manga magazine published by Shueisha The series sparked a craze and became a social phenomenon. In 1980, she won the Japan Cartoonists Association Award of Excellence for The Window of Orpheus. In 1995, at the age of 47, after having published numerous manga works, she enrolled in Tokyo College of Music’s Department of Vocal Music.Since graduating, she has been performing as a soprano singer and has appeared in opera productions. She was awarded France's prestigious Legion of Honour in 2009. In August 2021, a new opera created by Ikeda, Nemuru Otoko (The Sleeping Man), was performed in Finland. Her latest book, Ikeda Riyoko Dai1 kashuu:Sabishiki Hone (Riyoko Ikeda's First Songbook:Lonely Bones), which contains her thoughts in the form of tanka poetry and essays, is now on sale.
Official Website
http://www.ikeda-riyoko-pro.com/
Teiko Maehashi
Teiko Maehashi is one of Japan's leading international violinists. After studying with Anna Ono at the age of five, she enrolled in to the Leningrad Conservatory at the age of 17 to study with Mikhail Vaiman. In addition to other world-renown orchestras and artists, she has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. She continues to entrance many audiences with her graceful and sophisticated playing. In recent years, she has been giving recitals throughout Japan with programs filled with widely loved music. In 2004, she received the Japanese Art Academy Prize. She was awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal in the spring of 2011, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Rosette in the spring of 2017. She plays on a Del Gesu Guarneri violin made in 1736.
Official Website
https://teikomaehashi-violin.com/
I decided on the title for The Rose of Versailles during my second year of high school.
Maehashi: When you made your debut in the 1960s and 70s, I was living in Europe. At the time, news from Japan through weekly magazines and newspapers was about a month late, and I kept reading about your spectacular achievements. Considering you are also a vocalist, I thought of you as such an amazing person and a truly wonderful woman. I would have preferred to meet you in person today, but I am so glad we could talk like this.
Ikeda: I’ve really been looking forward to meeting you, and it is a shame we need to meet online. If I'm going to be this nervous, it might as well have been in person (laughter). My mother had me learn the piano from quite a young age, although she didn't force me to play. She told me that music was my future.
Maehashi: Really?
Ikeda: Yes. That's why I thought I would end up at music school, but I ended up becoming a manga artist by chance (laughter). Entering music school at the age of 47 is a bit late to start a proper career, of course. But I felt that if I didn't go, I would probably regret it for the rest of my life.
Maehashi: Did you always want to study vocals?
Ikeda: I really wanted to go to school for piano, which I started when I was six years old, but it was difficult to do so unless I had kept up playing for all those years. I asked, "If I could enter a music school now to study classical music, what should I study?” I was told that I would be fine in voice, wind instruments, or percussion, so I chose singing.
Maehashi: You enrolled as a Full-time student, right? How was it?
Ikeda: At that time, there was no such thing as admission process for working adults, so I studied very hard for the exam with other 18-year-olds.
Maehashi: It's a little hard to believe, but even when you were creating The Rose of Versailles, you didn't actually travel to France.
Ikeda: That's correct.
(From Volume 2 of The Rose of Versailles: Complete Edition)
Maehashi: I was wondering how you were able to produce such an impressive work considering the circumstances.
Ikeda: Well, ever since I was in high school, I had wanted to draw a story about Marie Antoinette, and I have been collecting material wherever and however I could.
Maehashi: Did you read Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette?
Ikeda: I did. I read it in my second year of high school, and I was so moved by it that I decided I would create a story about her someday. That was when I decided on the title The Rose of Versailles.
Maehashi: You had already decided on the title?!
Ikeda: Yes. I hadn't decided whether I would draw a manga, become a film director and shoot a movie, or write a novel, but I decided on the title of this work in my second year of high school.
Maehashi: I studied abroad in the Soviet Union during my second year of high school, and now that I think about it, your first and second years of high school are probably a good time to come up with great ideas, although your ideas might be vague at the time. When I reread my essays from the time when I learned I would be able to study in the Soviet Union, I found that I wrote about a lot of dreams that are now quite embarrassing to look back on (laughter).
In the Soviet Union, European art was frozen in time
Ikeda: But you had been practicing violin since you were very young, and you also learned Russian, because you were focused on studying in the Soviet Union.
Maehashi: The Soviet Union really had fantastic educational institutions at the time.
Ikeda: That's right. I went to Russia twice during the Soviet era and twice after it became the Russian Federation, and I still think that the Soviet era was more fascinating in terms of art and culture. I'm acquainted with a conductor who told me, "The Soviet Union under the communist regime preserved a wide range European culture, including music, in a frozen state." That conductor had studied in the Soviet Union, and mentioned that the quality of education during that era was very high.
Maehashi: That's interesting. I went in 1961, which was right at the height of the Cold War. It was like the whole city was grey. There was no color.
Ikeda: That's how I remember it, as well.
(From Volume 6 of the paperback edition of The Window of Orpheus)
Ikeda: The first time I travelled there I took a boat from Niigata to Nakhodka, and then took the Trans-Siberian Railway. The person operating the train was very stout.
Maehashi: It was a woman, wasn't it?
Ikeda: She was a woman. I was surprised.
Maehashi: The people worked very hard. In Russia, working together is the norm. The women work and are quite able to take care of themselves. That's how they can divorce the men so easily (laughter).
Ikeda: I see (laughter). The food situation was poor at the time, wasn't it?
Maehashi: People were always lining up for food. I took a ship to Russia from Yokohama. As you wrote in your book, the voyage on the ship was very turbulent. From Yokohama, we traveled north across the Pacific Ocean, crossed over the Tsugaru Strait, and then entered the Sea of Japan, where the waters were rough. Plus, I traveled on the cheapest cabin at the bottom of the ship, so I was clinging on for dear life.
Ikeda: I was so nauseous. I couldn't eat much the whole way. I was in a room with four people on bunk beds, and while I was in bed, I ate a bowl of instant noodles that I had brought with me (laughter).
Maehashi: Was it during the winter?
Ikeda: It was.
Maehashi: It must have been cold.
Ikeda: It certainly was. At the time, the Soviet Union didn't have a lot of supplies, so I was told, "You should bring pantyhose from Japan and give them to the local people.”
Maehashi: It really was like that back then.
Ikeda: There was a crew member who was a woman, and I asked her to burn some coal because it was cold, and I gave her some pantyhose. She was very happy about it and thanks to that, I was warm the rest of the way (laughter).
Maehashi: It was truly a communist country at the time, so all people were equal. There are some positive aspects to that approach, but there was no variety in the clothes they wore. I'm a small person, so I wear small sweaters and the like, but the Russian students seemed to want them even if they were worn out. I would give away clothes that were worn out, and the people I gave them to were just happy to have something to wear that looked different from what everyone else was wearing. I was walking down Nevsky Avenue one time, when a woman I didn't know followed me and said, "Hey, can I have that?" I had experiences like that many times. In the 60s, there were no cosmetics, so wearing make-up wasn't even a thing.
Ikeda: I know. I went to a department store once, and the shelves were empty, and there was a lot of space between all the canned goods. I was with a Japanese person who said, "Wow, it's like postwar Japan!" It struck a chord with me. Everywhere we went, there were lines of people waiting to get in.
Sing like you're playing the violin, and play the violin like you're singing
Ikeda: Considering that you studied Russian on your own and were intent on going there, by comparison I was not very diligent.
Maehashi: I wouldn't say that.
Ikeda: I had quit playing piano by the time I was in junior high school. My mother encouraged me to try many things, and when I told her I didn't like something, she let me quit without becoming angry. I didn't have a strong will to study Russian at the young age that you did.
Maehashi: I first started playing the violin in kindergarten, and when I think about it, it seems like all the dots lined up. It just so happened that I had to pick either the piano or the violin for aesthetic education, and since a small violin was more affordable than a piano, my mother said, "Well, you should go for the violin," and that's how it all started. Then, when I entered elementary school, my mother thought it would be a good idea to start taking lessons if I was still interested, since I had already begun playing. That's when I met Anna Ono, a Caucasian Russian teacher. Her husband is Shunichi Ono, the uncle of Yoko Ono. The fact that I met a Russian teacher in Japan was also a big factor for me.
(From Volume 9 of the paperback edition of The Window of Orpheus)
Ikeda: At that time, remnants of the Russian Revolution still remained, and there were many Russian aristocrats who married Japanese people and went into exile in Japan, weren't there?
Maehashi: That's exactly Anna's story. Mr. Ono, a scholar, got caught up in the revolution in St. Petersburg, where he had stopped to go to Germany via Russia. That was when he happened to hear Anna play Bach's Chaconne for her graduation exam at the Leningrad Conservatory, and he fell in love with her. They went to a church, had a wedding, and he brought her to Japan. Anna comes from an aristocratic background and is distantly related to Pushkin. The model for Tatjana in Onegin was a relative of hers. She was tall with her blond hair in a French twist, and she always wore a white silk blouse, a tight black skirt, and high heels to her lessons. The lessons took place in her house in Japan. It seemed like she could speak any language. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now I wonder if it was fate that led me to meet Anna Ono when I was five years old.
Ikeda: I am sure of it.
Maehashi: At the time, there were many wonderful musicians who appeared like stars, such as David Oistrakh, and there were many people who were playing at a high level.
Ikeda: You had a chance to hear Jascha Heifetz play when you were over there, right?
Maehashi: That was in Israel. I heard him perform in Israel.
Ikeda: The first time I heard a live violin performance was when I was in junior high school, and one of Jascha Heifetz's students came to Hibiya Public Hall to perform. I thought it was so cool. I wasn't really of the age to listen to Heifetz, though.
Maehashi: Is that right? I had a chance to re-read The Window of Orpheus for this discussion.
Ikeda: You didn't have to (laughter).
Maehashi: I think it's such an amazing concept. I'm sure everyone has already noticed this, so it's not really for me to point out, but the way she plays the violin is truly beautifully drawn.
Ikeda: Wow, really?
Maehashi: Really! It's the ideal form that I wish I could have.
Ikeda: I've received criticism from some readers who told me that I am bad at drawing violins.
Maehashi: That's not true. Did you use anyone as a model?
Ikeda: Actually, my sister played violin as a hobby.
Maehashi: Really?!
Ikeda: I've been to your concerts with my sister, too.
Maehashi: Thank you very much.
(From Volume 3 of the paperback edition of The Window of Orpheus)
Ikeda: But you know, when you listen to various people's performances, you can kind of tell how good they are by their posture.
Maehashi: Like you said, you have to learn the basics properly. That's precisely what it is. It's been sixty years now, but I really feel like I learned the basics in the Soviet Union. Since concerts are no longer held due to COVID, I had a little time on my hands, so I reminisced about those days. I remembered how I was told to do things and went back to learning the basics. That's how important it is. The way you use your body, the way you stand, it's all logical. Well, when you're young, you can force yourself to do it (laughs).
Ikeda: I know. I was in the voice department of Tokyo College of Music, and I was very lucky. Atsuko Azuma, one of Japan's most famous soprano teachers, came back to Japan from Europe and agreed to teach me. I was the last graduate, but the teacher taught me many things. For example, first of all, she taught me the way to walk out from the side of the stage, rather than the technical aspects. Many Japanese people come out with a lot of hesitation and just leave after the performance, but I think that's a mistake. We were in Ms. Azuma's class, where we were taught everything from how to walk and behave to putting on makeup.
Maehashi: That's great.
Ikeda: I was 47 years old when I entered the school, but I was told, "You are going to stand on stage in the future. Don't forget that. I will teach you to prepare for the stage." I was so happy, I had tears in my eyes. I was happy that she would say that even to an old woman like me (laughs). And Ms. Azuma always told me, "When you sing, imagine you're playing the violin.”
Maehashi: It was the opposite for me. I was told to play the violin like I was singing.
Ikeda: Wow, really?!
Maehashi: The ideal goal is to sound like a good singer. That's why I try singing the melody out loud myself. It's best if you can play it the way you can sing it.
Ikeda: I see. That's great. There are so many things in common.
Maehashi: The violin is close to the range of the human voice. But when you're playing, you can't concentrate on the melody itself. You tend to think about too many things, like fingering and bowing. But when you simply sing the song, you realize that you haven't been playing it the way you sing it. When you are struggling, it's good to sing the melody out loud. I've been doing that for quite a long time. The fast parts are easy to pull off with practice, but the slow parts are the most difficult.
Ikeda: I see. That's really interesting.
Continued in Volume 2
(Composition: Aya Okamura)
