Puccini: Madama Butterfly:  original production by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, various soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by Nicola Luisotti 14.02.2007 (JPr)

 

There were three strange random occurrences at a night at the opera. Firstly there was the orchestra’s reaction to their conductor Nicola Luisotti, the Italian who because of his involvement with the current Il trovatore seems to be in residence at Covent Garden at the moment. He returned to the podium after the interval to the foot stamping acclaim, on this the first night, of all in the orchestra. Considering the times I have been to the opera there, and all the great and good (and otherwise) conductors involved, this was the first time I can remember such a reception.

 

The second happening was the poor opera house flunky left holding his Valentine’s bouquet reward centre stage after the Suzuki, Elena Cassian’s, curtain call. She strode off stage left, totally oblivious to this poor man’s embarrassment. Finally, due to a slight cold I was sniffling a bit but I am convinced that the woman sitting next to me thought I was overcome by the emotion of it all. However, this was the crux of the evening: everything was nearly as good as it could be but I just had a rather cold feeling from the staging and was not as really involved in Butterfly’s tragic descent as I have been  in the past.

 

The PC police have recently set their sights on Madama Butterfly, damning it because of its racial stereotypes. This of course is true; equally worrying is its hint of paedophilia (at one point Butterfly sings something like, ‘love me just a little like a child should be loved’) and the ‘celebration’, however ironic Puccini might have been, of the greatness of the America. Unfortunately we are stuck in a timewarp, the work is what it is and of the time it was written. Puccini is not allowed the revisionism available say to Clint Eastwood in his masterpiece Letters from Iwo Jima, that together with its equally excellent companion film, Flags of Our Fathers can present a conflict between America and Japan from both viewpoints. Of course nothing like Madama Butterfly would be composed and staged today but there must be intellectual commonsense and great minds should find other things to bother themselves about.

 

Where would all this stop? Another related film, the 2005 Memoirs of a Geisha, was slated as early as pre-production because none of the leading actresses, though all Asian to some degree, were actually Japanese. Currently no one portrays Cio-Cio-San more realistically than Liping Zhang who is in fact of Chinese-Canadian descent. Among her ‘relations, friends and servants’ there were few (if any) with the correct ancestry and, of course, this would probably not be allowed in straight theatre.

 

Enough of this, what about the show? I had not seen the original 2003 Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser production (with sets by Christian Fenouillat and costumes by Agostino Cavalca) so am not certain how much has been diluted by Stephen Barlow’s restaging.

 

The central feature of any Madama Butterfly has to be its traditional Japanese home with rice paper walls and sliding panels. This is either represented fully or hinted at. Here we have all the ‘action’ contained with three walls with panels at the back that for novelty go up and down rather that back and forth. Through the lifting panels we see Nagasaki harbour, hills with cherry blossom, a neglected garden, a moonlight scene with above an array of stars when appropriate but that is about all we have to look at. It is though it is a reminiscence of an historical happening, evocative but far from convincing. The austerity of the setting throws all the work on to the principals and the music. Everything was rather static and very cool, with a lack of performance energy. This can only have been deliberate. Pinkerton’s ardour for Butterfly at the end of Act I is depicted by just a loosening of his top button and when Butterfly stabs herself it went almost unnoticed, stage left. The routine lighting did not help much, and there was only one unusual effect during the Act I duet that would probably have gone unnoticed in the stalls. Three yellow slashes of light on the floor originally resembling the rays on the Imperial Japanese flag broke and reassembled themselves making me think it was representative of the logs of a pyre, suggesting Butterfly was about to sacrifice herself to Pinkerton. I have the feeling I am thinking too deeply here but who knows?

 

I have got used to the child, Sorrow, displaying more Japanese features than Western ones hinting as some self-delusion on Cio-Cio-San’s part but again it was played perfectly straight with the blindfolded angelic, fair haired child pitifully waving his small American flag as Pinkerton sang off-stage and his mother rose from the ‘dead’ only to get to centre stage and theatrically finally expire before Pinkerton and Sharpless presumably get there.

 

Thirty five years on from his Covent Garden debut Alan Opie returned as Sharpless. He reminded me a bit of a Dr Watson old-colonial buffer, his position as US Consul imposing on him a very cold heart. His singing was equally dry and unemotional. Martyn Hill was a suitably pliant and hand-wringing marriage broker, Goro, with an appropriately wheedling voice. Jeremy White’s Bonze made me look carefully to see whether it really was instead John Tomlinson, so good (presumably unintentionally) was the impression in voice and physical movement as he denounces Cio-Cio-San. The Moldavian Elena Cassian was a fine Suzuki, her rich tones making the most of even something like her small Act I evening prayer.

 

Standing in at the last moment to replace the originally announced tenor, who was indisposed was the Slovakian, Miroslav Dvorsky, making his debut at the Royal Opera House. Just how far back I go with Butterfly is that my first Pinkerton in the 1970s in Vienna was great Gianni Raimondi. It was he who provided my first benchmark for what the Tenore spinto should be – large, thrilling, solid and brilliant top, and beautiful timbre to the rest of his voice. Dvorsky approached that with a robust ringingly-sung account, once his nerves had settled, that would bring the house down anywhere else in Europe. Here we apparently need a little more finesse before we get too enthusiastic, but in his build up to his Act I duet he showed he was also capable of this when he puts his mind to it. He deserves to be invited back.

 

Liping Zhang is undoubtedly a formidable Cio-Cio-San, a role she is performing throughout the world. That may just be the problem that it is too easy and it is becoming a bit of a caricature (this is different from ‘racial stereotype’). Histrionically and vocally she has everything going for her but she never quite got to the extremes of her emotions and as a result could not take me with her. Liping Zhang is Director of Vocal Studies at Beijing Conservatory and I am sorry to report that ‘Un bel di’ was as dry as most professorial lectures.

 

Classic FM lovers would have been in their element, with a beguiling rendition of the ‘Humming Chorus’ from both chorus and orchestra. It was a meditative interlude with just the right whiff of that cherry blossom to provide a sensuous backdrop to any activity suitable for this Valentine’s Day. This highlighted the strength of Nicola Luisotti that earned him the approbation of his orchestra. There was a respect for the theatricality of the piece, restraint and support for his singers, full-blooded passion and angst when necessary. He drew an impeccable performance from those before him in the pit. The orchestral sound had a breadth rarely heard in this house and I don’t recall experiencing those bird calls that greet the dawn in Act III so clearly in any other performance. His attention to detail was sublime, and he thoroughly deserved the trust he had so clearly gained of the chorus and orchestra. It is clear that Antonio Pappano’s tenure as musical director would be in peril had not he already signed a new contract, and Maestro Luisotti been snapped up as director of San Francisco Opera, starting in 2009. His rise since his international debut in 2002 has been meteoric and our loss (for now?) seems to be their considerable gain.

 

Jim Pritchard