This interview with Mori Keaki to promote the upcoming Terada Takio memorial concert All His Dreams – “Love” was published in Murakami Kumiko’s column Melodious Takarazuka for Nikkan Sports on June 10, 2021.
Somewhat rarely for Takarazuka/OG content, the interview took place remotely. The original article can be found here (archive link here).
Mori Keaki singing out famous songs in tribute – concert for 20th anniversary of Terada Takio’s passing
A memorial concert for the 20th anniversary of the passing of Terada Takio, the composer who created so many of the Takarazuka Revue’s famous songs, will take place in Osaka and Tokyo. Mori Keaki, former Snow Troupe Top Star who will be appearing in the concert, participated in a remote interview to give her thoghts on the upcoming performance. The concert will take place on [June] 26 and 27th in the Umeda Arts Theatre, Osaka, and on July 1st and 2nd in the Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Tokyo.
Terada Takio, composer for the Takarazuka Revue who scored shows such as Nova Bossa Bova and Rose of Versailles, died in 2000. A concert for the 20th anniversary of his death was scheduled for last year, but delayed due to the effects of COVID-19.
Mori: Takarasiennes all have good luck, so I thought, one day… Everyone from the time (of the original productions), singing the songs of those times. Everyone from the first production of Rose of Versailles and things like that… I’m looking forward to that even as part of the cast. All the great songs, famous songs. Maestro Terada was amazing. It’s an incredible inheritance.
Mori entered Takarazuka because of her admiration for Rose of Versailles.
Mori: Takarazuka is like a ring, generationally…it’s a world where everything has been connected for 100 years. The feelings that became my motivation [to join Takarazuka] are definitely there. I think it will be a blissful time for those appearing in the concert as well.
Her first face-to-face encounter with Terada was during her entrance exam for the Takarazuka Music School.
Mori: He was sitting in the examination room, right in the center. I had to sing my ‘new piece’1 right away, but I couldn’t do it at all, so I did it 9 times over. Even though the instructors could have given up at the third time without it making a difference (laughs). At the 9th time, Maestro Terada said “That’s quite enough.” I was sure I failed.
After joining Takarazuka she polished her singing skills and her connection [with Terada] also deepened.
Mori: At around my third year in the company, there were 30 or 40 of us singing in rehearsal, and the Maestro said “What do you think singing is?” I answered “Singing is ‘heart’,” and the Maestro smiled meaningfully and said “That’s wrong. Singing is sound intervals.” I thought that was actually a very deep thing to say.
After that, she said she started to think of it as “Singing the intervals in the score properly is proper courtesy to the composer.” Lines in plays are the same.
Mori: It’s courtesy as a performer not to change even things like “in, on, this, that”. In songs, too, when I was able to do that I was able to put my heart in it for the first time and as I practiced more of “myself” came out and gradually it would become “my song”. And then some songs were written for me as well.
Mori: Maestro [Terada] wrote some things specifically for me. And each time when I was able to sing them, I was so moved it would give me goosebumps. That was how much he captured the hearts of all of us singing his songs. If the Maestro was alive, he would be 90 now. Though there were 3000 songs (in his lifetime), to think there could be 5000 (if he still lived)… I wanted to hear so much more.
1 year has now passed since last year’s Violet Project2.
Mori: It’s still impossible to see what’s ahead. So there’s a significance to doing a concert in the midst of that. After all, Takarazuka is a little bit unique, even among the rest of the arts world. Just like the “Pure, Proper, Beautiful,” concept (Kobayashi) Ichizou created, it presents a world that’s a little bit separated from reality, and invites its audience into that world. In the past and now I felt like this was our mission, but last year (as OGs came together for the Violet Project) I felt it even more keenly.
She has learned over the past year as well.
Mori: This might be a weird thing to say, but this is the first time since entering Takarazuka I’ve had a normal life (laughs). Even though my father went to the other world over 40 years ago, I returned to my family. Being able to feel I’m not alone is something so precious. Talking, laughing, having a partner for those things is completely necessary, and I was able to experience the happiness of each day passing calmly.
Her exciting life prior to the effects of COVID-19 also “was a wonderful thing that fertilized [my development] and made me grow,” but she learned once more “how precious the ‘ordinary’ is”.
Mori: I understand so much that it hurts how young people want to see people and meet their friends. But right now I’m being interviewed remotely. And the Violet Project, that was something where everyone sang in their own homes before being combined together. I learned that there’s no limit to invention.
Even so, she says the excitement of being “live” is exceptional.
Mori: Recently I sang in a live performance for the first time in about a year and a half, and even I was shocked at how thrilled I was that there was an audience. This is the real excitement of live performance, I thought.
The audience’s applause and clapping along even soothed her nervousness.
Mori: With that interaction with the audience, I felt a strange exhaltation, and it was so warm. The power of the audience is amazing… I can’t think of such a passionate performance without an audience.
In the future, once the effects of COVID-19 have calmed, she wants to plan regular gatherings of OGs to sing the famous songs. “It created that sense of enjoyment in me,” she says.
Her emotional attachment is also exceptional
Though Terada died in July of 2000, his composing career 40th anniversary concert took place in March of that year, and Mori took part in it. Her connections are deep and her emotional attachment to this performance is also exceptional. In this concert, she will be singing songs from her Top Star era such as Paradise Tropicana and Sweet Typhoon, as well as the theme song of This Love Will Last to the Cloudy Horizon, where she played Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune, and Fall with the Flowers, Fall with the Snow from The 47 Ronin. She says the structure changes daily, morning and night, “so that nothing gets overlooked”.
Terada Takio 20th Death Anniversary Memorial Concert – All His Dreams “Love”
As composer for the Takarazuka Revue, Terada Takio created around 3000 songs for shows such as Nova Bossa Nova, Rose of Versailles, Man of Starlight, Love Blooms out on the Murasakino, Prelude of Dawn, and more. He was known as “The Mozart of Takarazuka.” OGs and current performers will sing Terada’s melodies. Act 1 will be selections from Revue Shows, and Act 2 will feature songs from plays by Ueda Shinji and Shibata Yukihiro, changing daily.
1 – The sight-reading (solfege) segment of the singing exam.
2 – The remote video project where OGs from the past several decades sang Takarazuka’s official theme song. (First compilation here.)