Madama Butterfly in Valencia - It's all in the details
Audiences tend to fall into two distinct groups, those for whom any deviation from their own prejudices is the end of civilization, and those for whom radical interpretation is a welcome challenge to the establishment. However, there is another perspective in which directors can completely change the way we understand these often rigidly interpreted stories by making small adjustments to the production. Such was the success of Emilio Lopez, director of a recent production in Valencia. His 2021 production of Butterfly will be broadcast on Opera Vision on Sunday 19 December and will be available on this website for several weeks.
Let's start with the concept of verism. This was certainly true of the way Puccini approached his work, meaning that the setting should not be ostentatious and that the characters could be portrayed as everyday people. We can assume that the composer never experienced Japan in the middle of the 19th century from an opera environment, so if verism applies to Butterfly, it applies primarily on an ideological level. However, opera's potential for costume drama usually so overwhelms designers and directors that even recognition of verism in the result is obscured. In other words, everything is pretty before it becomes trustworthy. And it is verism that suffers.
The ceremonial dagger with which she eventually took her own life was given to her father by the Mikado with the request that he use it on himself. We have to assume that Butterfly's family was already in disgrace. She then compounds this shame by rejecting her cultural and religious traditions, an act that Uncle Bonze condemns, causing her friends and community to reject her, everyone except Suzuki of course. The fact that Puccini then takes us to the love scene of the wedding night often obscures this rejection. In the Valencia production, the cherry blossom backdrop becomes a starry night of the couple's ecstasy, but it does so by dissolving like celluloid in an overheated projector, suggesting that the soothing blossoms of the past have been destroyed. The starry night persists into the second and third acts, but thus becomes a symbol of continuing isolation and Butterfly's insistence, indeed imperative, to live in the past.
Cio-Cio-san often comes across as a meek and thus stereotypical Asian girl who has never even practiced the word "boo" with geese around. As a result, she often becomes a lonely, even simple-minded naive devotee of Pinkerton, despite the fact that as a geisha she must have had experience with a fly-by-night sailor. The pleading image may have endeared her to the audience, but it robs her of the identity and individuality she surely has, or she would never have pursued her own, private desires so single-mindedly.
The thing is, he doesn't have much of a choice. She is poor. She is a geisha. She did her job. But once she's made a commitment, she can't go back. She wants to please him, but in doing so suffers the rejection of her own community.
In Valencia, Emilio Lopez learns that Cio-Cio-san lives in poverty. Ignored by Pinkerton for three years and still rejected by her own community, she and Suzuki live amidst decay and filth. The temptation to still portray Butterfly in full, opulent geisha finery makes no sense and is convincingly avoided in this production. Suzuki confirms this poverty in the libretto. What all too often seems like blind faith on Butterfly's part now becomes a necessity, imposed by her community due to her rejection by them and by them. He can't come back. He has no other choice. This is an element of verism in opera that is often overlooked by directors.
But in this production in Valencia, the real surprise comes at the end. Pinkerton returned but refused to see Butterfly. She snaps out because she can't take it anymore… However, she wants the baby. His new American wife and Sharpless were told by Butterfly to come back in half an hour and get the baby. Note that Pinkerton did not hear her request.
Butterfly has plans of her own, but plans that involve using the ceremonial weapon her father killed himself with. The elements are clear. Butterfly kills herself, the voice of the returning Pinkerton is heard. Or maybe not…
The usual way to cure this is to have Butterfly impale herself on an orchestral tutti and then hear the sound of Pinkerton's voice as she dies. If Pinkerton isn't seen, it could be argued that he was really ugly all along and that Cio-Cio-san is making up the voice and is therefore still deceiving himself. If he appears, then his character is rather out of control. If Butterfly stayed, then the ecstasy of the starry night could return. But then she already waited three years…
Sometimes Cio-Cio-san hears a voice and then stabs herself. Again, we have him imagining the sound as a possibility, but then we also have the possibility that he suffers a form of self-loathing as a result of the rejection. Again, this approach internalizes Butterfly's suffering.
He waits for her to appear and recognize her, and then kills himself.
The result is the transformation of her suicide into an act of defiance. She was rejected by her company and by Pinkerton. She is alone and has no future. But she is now also determined not to possess her, and she wants to show her disdain. You won't own me as chattel, he thinks. And so her character transforms from a meek and gentle recipient of tragedy to a defiant individualist, albeit a dead one. At least she asserted her own position. It's different and surprising, beautifully illustrating that sometimes the most radical transformations are achieved through detail.
Philip Spiers
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