Hizi Koyke

Hizi Koyke (1902–1991), born Koike Hisako in Tokyo, Japan, was a Japanese soprano who built a career as a singer and stage performer in the United States, appearing on Broadway between 1927 and 1947. Her father was a glass manufacturer, and her mother died in childbirth. Both parents were converts to Christianity, and Koyke was educated at a Methodist missionary school. After persuading her father to allow her to leave Japan, she was taken in as a foster child by an American doctor and his wife, who brought her first to Canada and then to New York in 1923 so she could attend Columbia University to train as a teacher. During her time in New York she studied voice with Edythe Magee and attended performances at the Metropolitan Opera to deepen her understanding of Western opera.

Koyke made her New York debut in 1927 in David Belasco's Madame Butterfly, a role that would define much of her career. She continued performing in productions of that show for several years across the United States and Canada, and for added authenticity she designed her own costumes for the role. She had studied the part of Cio-Cio-San with Tamaki Miura while working with the San Carlo Opera Company, and she was also frequently cast as Yum-Yum in The Mikado. Her Broadway credits included The Geisha and The Hot Mikado, as well as M. Butterfly. Beyond those productions, she appeared in Mascagni's Iris in 1930, Leoni's L'Oracolo in 1937, and gave recitals and sang on radio throughout the 1930s.

The attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II brought Koyke's performing career to a halt, as American audiences were unreceptive to a Japanese singer or to productions with Japanese themes. She did not perform during the war years and was monitored by the FBI, though she was not placed in a Japanese internment camp. She returned to the stage after the war, resuming her signature role in Madame Butterfly in 1946 and continuing to perform in that opera until at least 1950. She retired from the stage in 1955 but remained active in opera as a director with the Chicago Lyric Opera, serving as stage director for Maria Callas' 1955 performance of Butterfly. In 1964 she appeared in an educational television program about opera on a Texas public television station, produced for schoolchildren who would be attending an opera performance in Dallas.

Koyke married fellow singer Harald Hansen in 1932; the marriage ended in divorce in 1940. She subsequently married Edward Mario Gallo, the son of opera producer Fortune Gallo. Koyke died in New York in September 1991.