One Fine Day: Opera Carolina’s Madama Butterfly

by Phillip Larrimore

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Picture by jonsilla.com

January 26, 2012

Madama Butterfly, presented by Opera Carolina, at the Belk Theater January 26, 28, 29

The debate as to whether Puccini's Madama Butterfly is a symbolist pipe-dream or full blown verismo opera is effectively upended in Opera Carolina's production, where it is seen afresh. This is in great part due to the sets, costumes, and projections of Jun Kaneko, which are bold, beautiful, and ingenious but—best of all—put these qualities in the service of Puccini's great score. Michael Baumgartner's lighting design, like the sets, is not only striking but musical. It is more than an experiment, it is an artistic success.

The basic ground of Kaneko's set is a tilted spiral form beginning as a long ramp backstage and resolving in the middle as a circular platform. It is whorled with black stripes on a stark white ground evocative of the undercurrent of time, of fatality—like the title graphics of Hitchcock's Vertigo or the whirlpools of Hokusai. A huge Shoji screen serves as a visual metaphor for Butterfly and Pinkerton's home. Throughout the opera, large paper panels are dropped in changing configurations and with changing projections drawn in Kaneko's fine hand upon them. The look is severe but never mechanical, simple but never naive, the proportions nearly as beautiful as a Cycladic vase.

James Meena, the conductor, skillfully underscores the many vignettes hidden in the arc of the score. He pointed out things in Madama Butterfly that aren't always noticed, those beautiful details which elevate Puccini above his verismo confreres like Cilea and Leoncavallo. He made me aware that Puccini was aware of Debussy.

The choreography worried me at first, but it soon shed its orientalist movement clichés and became beautiful by the time Madama Butterfly's retinue entered. The four black leotarded, square hooded figures which acted as Madama Butterfly's household furniture or servants—I couldn't decide which—seemed to synthesize the costumes of Bunraku puppeteers with cabinetry, but they were never used to the point of annoyance, and after a while I grew fond of them.

The weak link of this production was Fernando Portari's Pinkerton. Pinkerton is a callow bastard, to be blunt, but we must find what Butterfly finds attractive in him if the tragedy which follows is to convince. Unfortunately, his performance was a recital of the part. Yunah Lee's Madama Butterfly was superbly acted but seemed to me vocally underpowered in act one's big duet and in “Un Bel Di Vedremo.” She was, however, gripping in the second part of act two, which was heartbreaking, as it should be. Both Todd Thomas' Sharpless and Margaret Thompson's Suzuki were fine contributions. Thompson brought to her part an almost Brahmsian beauty, and her duets with Yunah Lee's Butterfly were some of the evening's best singing. The brief appearance of the Bonze—played by John Fortson—was haunting.

One other fault of the production was to sanitize the role of Goro, making him less of a pimp than he should be. The same was true of the surtitles, which failed to make the unpleasant points of Pinkerton's character entirely clear, as well as omitting some of the wordplay of the libretto.

If you have an interest in sculpture, painting, lighting, staging, and their interplay with music, I would urge you to see this production of Madama Butterfly. It outweighs conventional ideas of success; it is what the future of opera may look like if it is good.

Photos by jonsilla.com