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From a series of essays by SGI President Ikeda

Humankind's Universal Musical Instrument

At the NHK Hall in Tokyo, Japan, Mr. Ikeda meets with then Royal Opera Director Eva Wagner-Pasquier (second from left) and Administration Director Richard Wright (left) (September 1986)

It was a dramatic demonstration of the power of the human voice. The singers’ unmiked voices reverberated throughout the vast NHK Hall in Tokyo, directly connecting with the audience. Yet while enormously powerful, they also exhibited a delicacy of expression that touched the depths of the listener’s heart. The occasion was a performance by the British Royal Opera of Giacomo Puccini’s ambitious final work, Turandot, set in the imperial city of a half-legendary ancient China.

What a marvelous display of vocal talent it was: high voices that seemed to pierce the heavens; rotund, deep voices that shook the earth. That autumn night in 1986, every member of the audience was treated to a wonderful vocal banquet.

The voice is a mysterious thing. It communicates far more than words alone. I have met many people in my life, and indeed it is true that each person has a unique vocal quality and way of speaking. The way we talk, our individual vocal tone and habits, are intimately related to our personality and character. There are warm voices and cold voices; weak and strong voices; lustrous, shimmering voices; rich, full voices; and deep, weighty voices. The same words can be convincing when delivered in one voice or ring hollow when spoken in another.

The voice is a mirror of our being, of our life condition. It is also immediately affected by the subtlest changes in our physical or mental state. The sixth-century Chinese Buddhist teacher T’ien-t’ai is recorded as saying that the inferior physician feels the pulse, the ordinary physician observes the patient’s color, and the superior physician listens to the patient’s voice.

Our voices are our selves.

The voice is alive. That is what gives it the power to move and stir other lives. The feeling in a voice enters through the ears, "the gateway to the spirit," travels deep into the heart, rouses it and stimulates reactions, which then manifest as actions. In Japanese, the words for "to sing" (utau) and "to appeal, to reach out to" (uttau) have the same root. When we reach out to others, the distance between two hearts is bridged, and we are comforted. The voice has the power to transform life from within, to strengthen and purify it. That is why music has been an integral part of both religion and medicine from the earliest times. In ancient Egypt, music was known as "the soul’s medicine."

Actually using our voices is even better for our health than just listening. Vocalizing energizes us. It stimulates our brains and improves our respiration and circulation. Using the voice has been recognized as contributing to the prevention of aging and senility.

In sports, it is often said in Japan, you win with your voice; enthusiastically shouting encouragement while you play inspires you and your teammates on to victory; when you fall silent, it’s often a sign that you have given up and are probably headed for defeat. The same may well be true of life in general.

Carmen (September 1986) [Min-On]

That’s why it’s important for us to use our voices, to speak out and sing out. The liberation of your voice is your spiritual liberation. The 20th-century Japanese sculptor Hiroatsu Takata, a friend of Romain Rolland and Mahatma Gandhi, had a deep appreciation for music. When he heard Japanese popular music after returning from a long stay in France, he was shocked to find that it was little more than a poor imitation of Western music. He wrote: "The obsequious, feudalistic attitude that inculcated obedience to authority as the primary virtue has robbed the Japanese people of a sense of self." Music, he said, is the most direct expression of the inner reaches of the spirit, and without a strong sense of self, there can be no art. In such a situation, he insisted, popular art of any quality cannot emerge.

If we suppress our selves, swallow what needs to be said, hold it inside, and care too much about what others think, we will not find our true, natural voice. If we allow our voice to be suppressed, if we adopt an obsequious voice, a fake voice, we will actually forget our own voice and, tragically, lose our own selves in the process. A society that suppresses forthright, honest voices cannot progress in human terms.

Great singers are capable of creating the illusion that they are singing to each member of the audience individually, opening a channel of private communication between singer and listener. In addition to Turandot, the Royal Opera performed Bizet’s Carmen on their 1986 Japan tour. Agnes Baltsa took the lead role of Carmen, with the tenor José Carreras playing opposite her. The performance was sponsored by the Min-On Concert Association. Carreras is one of the world's most renowned tenors. He has said: "We have many good singers, but most of them are unable to use their voices to show emotion and to arouse the audience’s feelings." Technique is of course very important, but it isn’t enough. "Singing from the soul," says Carreras, is what distinguishes the great from the good.

Carreras was struck with acute leukemia in 1987, just a year after his performance in Japan. He was only 40 years old. Even with a bone marrow transplant, he was given only a 20-percent chance of survival. He underwent radiation therapy, though it caused him debilitating nausea. He survived this terrible suffering, he says, with the help of opera; to encourage himself, he would quietly, and sometimes just mentally, hum arias from his favorite operas.

Agnes Baltsa and José Carreras in Carmen (September 1986). [Min-On]

The singer made a miraculous recovery, and opera fans the world over rejoiced. A comeback concert was held near the Arch of Triumph in his hometown of Barcelona, Spain. Carreras writes about the event in his autobiography, Singing From the Soul. In the 25 seconds it took to walk to the stage, the tenor’s life flashed before his eyes: his difficulties early in his career, the diagnosis of cancer at the height of his success, the night afterward he spent wrestling with his fear, the sensation of being so close to death, his hopes, his pain and his suffering. When he came back to himself and looked up, there were people as far as he could see--wave after wave of spectators. It was a tribute not to Carreras the opera singer but Carreras the man. He felt overcome, his throat tightened, and he wondered if he could even sing. After calming his nerves, he quietly began.

He had thought a good deal about how to end his concert, finally deciding on "Nessun dorma" from Turandot. The famous aria closes with the lines: "Depart, O night! Hasten your setting, you stars! . . . At dawn I shall win! I shall win! I shall win!" He wanted to communicate to his audience the profound lesson he had learned: "I never gave up hope of coming through my ordeal alive, and now I face the future with confidence. I’ll do what must be done; I will not let myself be intimidated." As he sang, he prayed that his message would strike home in the hearts of each individual in the audience, that each of them would feel that his song was also their own.

Let my voice be heard, he thought, let it reach and touch everyone here. Let it inspire bravery in them all.

Let everyone sing! Let all proudly decide to make their lives victorious in the end!

And at that miraculous moment, the voice of the performance on the stage and the voice of a life of struggle were united as one.

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