Obituaries in the news

Obituaries in the news

Nao Takasugi

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Former state Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (NAH’-oh tah-kah-SOO’-gee), who was sent to a Japanese internment camp during World War II, has died. He was 87.

Takasugi, a Republican from Oxnard, spent six years in the Legislature before he was termed out of office in 1998. He had been the mayor of Oxnard for 10 years before winning the Assembly seat.

His son, Ronald Takasugi, said Friday that his father died Thursday night of complications from a stroke. Robert Garcia of Garcia Mortuary in Oxnard told The Associated Press that arrangements are pending.

Takasugi was a 19-year-old student at UCLA when he was sent to an internment camp. He later graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia before returning to California.

Elisabeth Soderstrom

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom, an international opera star, has died, her husband Sverker Olow says.

Olow says Soderstrom died in Stockholm early Friday morning of complications from a stroke.

Soderstrom, who was 82, made her debut in 1947 at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre, singing in one of Mozart’s lesser-known works.

From 1949 to 1980 she performed at the Royal Swedish Opera, while frequently appearing at some of the largest opera houses in the world. She also recorded frequently.

She made her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1959 as Susanna in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” with Erich Leinsdorf conducting.

She kept returning to house through 1964, singing Sophie in Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier,” Marguerite in Gounod’s “Faust,” Adina in Donizetti’s “L’Elisir D’Amore,” Musetta in Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Rosalinde in Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Die Fledermaus” and the Composer in Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.”

After 1964, she didn’t return to an opera at the Met until 1983, she sang the Marschallin in “Rosenkavalier” and Ellen Orford in Britten’s “Peter Grimes.” She sang the Countess in “Figaro” there three years later and made her Met finale at age 71 in 1999 at the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.”

Between 1993 and 1996 she was director of the Drottningholm Palace Theatre, where she had made her debut almost 50 years earlier.