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Puccini, Madam Butterfly: Soloists, chorus and orchestra of English National Opera conducted by David Parry. London Coliseum 31.1.2008 (JPr)

Paul Whelan as the Bonze with Bunraki puppeteers

Fresh from the selective revisionism of Die Zauberflote at Covent Garden I couldn't help remembering how when Madama Butterfly was revived at Covent Garden early in 2007 those keeping an eye out for anything non-PC damned it  because of its racial stereotypes. While this is undoubtedly apposite to this opera,  I have also always found the toasts, however ironic Puccini might intentionally or otherwise have been, to the greatness of the America (or ‘God’s America’ at one point) also particularly irksome. However it is the acceptance of the ‘pleasures’ of sex tourism that is particularly worrying if dwelt on too long in this opera. The acceptability of underage sex is made clear in Act I where one might hope common sense would prevail and something like ‘Make love to me gently as if I were a baby’ would be excised from David Parry’s translation. And  yet again there is rampant misogyny as Pinkerton sings ‘She babbles on like women everywhere you go’.

While I am not propounding gutting opera libretti to make them more acceptable for twenty-first century audiences, I am  highlighting an inconsistent approach to these matters. Nowhere else in theatre - where an actor of a suitable ethnic background must be cast as Othello these days and Fagin  has become - well who knows what,  but certainly not Jewish -  would Judith Howarth, on a number of counts, get to portray a 15-year-old. So let’s raise at least two cheers for the world of opera because it is stuck in a timewarp: in reality these works are what they are and belong to the time they are written. But what's for sure though is that Madam Butterfly, despite its music, has never been merely a romantic love story.

Judith Howarth as Madam Butterfly

Anthony Minghella's Olivier award-winning production returns to the London Coliseum after a couple of stagings at the New York Metropolitan and although Minghella himself is absent,  in the hands of his wife, the production’s associate director and choreographer Carolyn Choa,  the revival stays close to home.

There is a black lacquered box like set (by Michael Levine) and above the stage a huge mirror to show what is happening 'behind the scenes'. The moveable wall panels making up  Cio-Cio-San's house are reminiscences of Graham Vick’s 1984 iconic ENO production that went someway to undercutting the opera’s controversial moment with scenic counter-arguments. These have a multitude of uses including providing entrances for characters or stage furniture. Basically, we seem to be looking at a very large display case, peering in at the latest exotic exhibit.

Minghella has been attracted by making the production as ‘authentic’ as possible. So Cio-Cio-San is ultimately a victim of the exquisite rituals of Japanese culture though she would never in reality kill herself the way she does. There are hectares of silk on stage of almost every colour known to (wo)man or Zandra Rhodes, in the kimonos, obis, parasols and fans from costume designer Han Feng. Cio-Cio-San says those crude ‘baby’ words and Gwyn Hughes Jones’s bulky Pinkerton is after his money’s worth but that's all okay because down comes a pretty cherry blossom curtain and there is a ‘ballet’ involving 9 paper lanterns -, and you realise that is supposed to be no more than a romantic duet when actually it is so much more. So everything looks very good without making the audience care enough about what they are being shown. Most of what this opera really needs is already in the score, the hints of Wagner in Act III seem deliberate as if to underline the drama. Throughout,  Puccini shows a mastery of ceremonial moments and intimate ones, the joy of togetherness and the pain of desertion and this is something that Minghella does not quite match.

Gwyn Hughes Jones as Pinkerton / Ashley Holland as Sharpless

There are undoubtedly some wonderfully evocative and atmospheric moments; in Act I dancers flick out black ribbons as a background to the turmoil The Bonze creates. At the start of Act II,  panels are used ingeniously to take Pinkerton from his ‘bride’ and then there is the opening ballet at the start of Act II Part Two with a puppet Cio-Cio-San dreaming of her  life together with Pinkerton,  along with origami birds (robins?) on sticks. Another scenic masterstroke came  after the music stopped and Judith Howarth took her curtain call rising in silhouette against red lighting (by Peter Mumford) reminding me of some  huge insect, not necessarily a butterfly.

Unfortunately, the mention of ‘puppet’ brings me to the main weakness of the staging and the appearance of Sorrow, Cio-Cio-San’s son as another Bunraku puppet, despite being wonderfully and traditionally manipulated by up to three puppeteers (of the Blind Summit Theatre) in full view. The puppet seemed too small and looked eerily too much like William Hague to be other than a distraction. This device eliminates any real emotional interplay between a mother and her son; unlike the Vick production where the child was undoubtedly Japanese and  one of the most significant moments where Vick challenged Giacosa and Illica’s original libretto. It is not really possible to pity a wooden doll nor can it make you want to rush t0 the stage to prevent the mother committing suicide. Where the evening should be at its emotional height we were absorbed by watching the puppet for goodness sake!

There was not enough emotion in the pit either during Act I when David Parry’s Puccini was too unidiomatic and carefully paced. The music gained the freedom and intensity necessary only in the final part of Act II despite secure playing from the orchestra and well coached singing from the chorus. This is a score that benefits from a free use of rubato and the rough-edges that attacking the music dramatically can produce but here, sheer volume often overpowered the soloists -  which in some cases that may have been the individual singer’s own fault. Christopher Gillett’s Goro and Paul Whelan’s Bonze were not at their best and it was unclear what language the latter was singing in. Of the younger generation of singers,  William Berger and Madeleine Shaw seemed to make more of their roles as Yamadori and Kate Pinkerton than Puccini had in mind for them so they may people to watch develop in future years. Suzuki probably had the best voice of the major singers and gave a rounded portrayal of this pivotal role, although slightly unbalancing the quartet of principals as a result. Ashley Holland did not project well as Sharpless and some words were lost; he was a very bluff and underplayed consul. Gwyn Hughes Jones had the slow moving bulk of John Wayne in John Huston’s The Barbarian and the Geisha but had little charisma and the voice, bright and secure though it was, lacked the Italianate ‘sob’ that role demands.

Finally,  Judith Howarth was the replacement for Mary Plazas who was the original Cio-Cio-San in this production. Much was made I thought at the time,  of needing a singer who was ‘so very tiny’ as the translation says this character should be, yet here we had the very experienced Miss Howarth. She acted very gamely and always tried to be true to the character,  but it was difficult to suspend belief and think of her at all as a teenager. From a purely vocal point of view,  after a botched climactic high D flat after her first entrance,  her singing exhibited a mature cultured artistry, elegant tone and phrasing though perhaps lacking some  freshness and precision. The depth of her character’s vulnerability and despair was plain to see during Act II which was where Miss Howarth was at her best. Even then,  despite her best efforts she just did not raise the dramatic temperature high enough to make me care what became of her in the way a number of sopranos at ENO have done in the past.

Jim Pritchard


Photos © Alastair Muir

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