Yoko Watanabe, 51; Japanese Soprano Known for ‘Butterfly’

Yoko Watanabe, the Japanese soprano who sang the title role of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” more than 400 times, including in Los Angeles in 1999 and Costa Mesa in 1991, died July 15 at her home in Milan, Italy. She was 51.

A Japan Opera Foundation official, Teruko Tsubaki, announced her death to Associated Press but refused to specify the cause. Watanabe had been diagnosed with cancer in January 2000, Tsubaki said.

“Watanabe was the first Japanese ever to have performed lead roles in the world’s four major opera houses,” Tsubaki said, referring to La Scala in Milan, Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House in London.

An only child, Watanabe grew up in Fukuoka on Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan. “It was very difficult to see opera there,” she told The Times in 1991. “There wasn’t much culture.”

Still, a local production of “Butterfly,” which she saw when she was 16, set her on her future career path. “I went to [the star’s] dressing room, knocked and said, ‘Teach me!’ She said, ‘Tomorrow you come back and I will listen to your voice.’ ”

Kuniko Kozono, the star of that production, became her first teacher. Watanabe went on to graduate from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1976. Winning second prize at a competition in Tokyo that year enabled her to study in Milan. The first-prize winner was Renato Grimaldi, an Italian tenor whom she married and who survives her.

Grimaldi ultimately abandoned his career in favor of his wife’s because “it’s very difficult to have two singers in one family,” Watanabe said. “He coaches me. He is my worst critic. He complains about everything from vocalization to stage presence, everything. As singers, we need others’ ears. After a performance, everyone says, ‘Bravo, bravo.’ It’s OK to hear ‘bravo,’ but you have to learn too.”

Watanabe made her professional debut singing Nedda in Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” in Treviso, Italy, in 1978. In 1984, she made her Los Angeles debut during the Olympic Arts Festival singing Liu in Puccini’s “Turandot,” a role she repeated for her La Scala debut a year later.

She made her Met debut as Butterfly in 1987. Writing in the New York Times, Will Crutchfield described her tone as having “more metal than cream in it” but praised her “heartfelt portrayal” and subtle characterization.

Although she sang other Puccini heroines as well as having leading roles in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Gounod’s “Faust” and Bizet’s “Carmen,” Butterfly became her signature role.

“It is true that my figure is Japanese, so when the public sees me as Cio-Cio San, it is more convincing,” she told the Orange County Register in 1991. “But when it comes time to sing, it is not a Japanese singer, it is Italian verismo opera. The accent has to be clear, the gestures are big, it’s so far from Japanese that it’s completely different.”

In December 1999, Watanabe fell ill during a performance. A month later, she was diagnosed with cancer, prompting her to end her career and seek treatment.