Puccini, Madama Butterfly: (Production from The Minnesota Opera and Opera  Theatre of St. Louis) Soloists and Orchestra Arizona Opera, Antony  Walker(conductor) Tucson, AZ  3and 4.02. 2007 (NdV)

Cast

Butterfly-Indira Mahajan Feb. 3, Barbara Divis Feb. 4
Pinkerton- Kip Wilborn Feb.3, Jose Luis Duval, Feb. 4
Sharpless- Philip Cutlip
Suzuki-Jane Dutton
Kate Pinkerton-Kara Harris
Goro- Joseph Hu
Prince Yamadori- Robert Barefield

Production

Director- Colin Graham
Lighting- Robert Denton
Sets & Costumes- Neil Patel and David C. Woolard
General and Artistic Director-Joel Revzen

Many sopranos, regardless of their vocal category,have yearned to include Puccini's Madama Butterfly into their repertoire and unfortunately the annals are filled with stories of their unsuccessful attempts. But that was not the case with the Arizona Opera Company which had the good fortune of presenting two sopranos, Indira Mahajan and Barbara Divis in the role of Butterfly who easily met the numerous vocal and dramatic challenges Puccini so passionately delineated for his beloved tragic heroine. These two portrayals, however, were only part of what made this Butterfly production surely one of the best examples of how regional opera is capable of rivaling any international opera company's presentation of a Puccini work.

To be honest, along with Mahajan and Divis, conductor Antony Walker and director Colin Graham were unknowns to audiences here in Tucson, aided little by the sketchy bios in the program. But with five successful performances in Phoenix and three in Tucson, at the end of January and the beginning of February, they will now be remembered for their moving collaborative undertaking of Puccini's most intimate work.

What proved so edifying about this production was its overall approach, a sort of "going back to basics," if you will. Walker took Butterfly's journey, from young innocent to a mature woman who is faced with difficult emotional choices, to heart. He followed Puccini's dictum that the action, and its accompanying music, ought to evolve with a slow building tenderness giving each character not only his or her full musical expression, but enough time for each to establish a persona, no matter the size of the role. Two examples of this were Joseph Hu, as Goro, the marrriage broker and Kara Harris, as Kate Pinkerton, Lt. Pinkerton's American wife.

 

And from what transpired on the stage, it seemed as if the conductor and Graham worked very well together so as to give Puccini's opera its full dramatic impact. As with Puccini's other versions,* the Brescia version, which Graham chose to mount here, has its fans and its detractors, but it is enough to say this one was received with full enthusiasm when presented in 1904 while the first Milan version was deplored. Graham carefully wove his directorial fabric so that it would follow the seamless story line that Puccini methodically devised leading to Butterfly's suicide, and its emotionally spent conclusion.

Ironically, the two sections of the production that seemed to pull the audience into the opera emotionally were the ones that are not presented today. In the love duet at the end of Act One, Walker and Graham returned about 37 bars of music from the Brescia version where Butterfly relates to Pinkerton that her first impression of the Lieutenant was that his people were barbarians which, in the ongoing duet, he was able to convince her otherwise, making the moments ever so intense when they finally came to consummate their love.

Of the two casts, Mahajan and her Pinkerton, Kip Wilborn made the stronger impression by slowly making their way through the duet, accenting every melodic nuance Puccini interlaced into the longest love duet of any of his operas. And in the last act, the meeting between Butterfly and Kate Pinkerton was intensified with additional dialogue which contrasted Butterfly's personal sacrifice of giving up her son with Kate's ambivalent feelings of taking Butterfly's son and promising to love him as her own. This extended scene allowed Phillip Cutlip as the American Counsel, Sharpless, Jane Dutton's Suzuki and Kara Harris' Kate to give a more complete picture of their personal sorrow over Butterfly's plight. In reality, this version may not work for other productions, but Walker and Graham made it seem that this version was the one audiences would most love to hear and see. Divis and her partner, Jose Luis Duval also proved to be equal to the director's guiding hand in telling Butterfly's story. But Mahajan portrayed Butterfly's dying moments with such pathos it brought her Pinkerton to lie beside her in commiserating grief giving the audience their desired lump in the throat.

The whole production, kimonas in faded pastels, lighting that expressed Puccini's music throughout the evening and Neil Patel's set, simplicity itself, using just the interior of Butterfly's house with sliding panels to point out what part of Butterfly's heart was breaking at every moment certainly made this one of Arizona Opera's moments to remember.

 

Nicholas del Vecchio


Pictures © Scott Humbert

* For a comprehensive look at Puccini's four versions of Madama Butterfly see Michele Girardi's Puccini, His International Art, University of Chicago Press and Julian Budden's Puccini His Life and Works, Oxford University Press.

The Arizona Opera web site is Here

 

The author's web site Living at the Opera is Here