This was a benchmark Madama Butterfly for our times
Nailed it! Well, maybe not. Pinned it! Floris Visser, mould-breaking opera director, caused a 10ft gigantic silver pin to lower slowly from the flies at an angle of 45° at the end of Act I of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Copenhagen’s cutting-edge opera house, gazing out across the city from the Island of Holman, in all its record-breaking 2.5bn Danish Kroner cyclops glass fronted pomp.
The pin hung mid-air, glistening – surely now 14ft? Threatening. A statement. Who was about to be skewered? Visser always menaces with intent. The pin finally came to rest – at least 16ft – and “ouch” sharp. Sitting centre, Row 4, I felt at personal risk.
Then there descended, ever so slowly, an enormous dark, orange butterfly, wings extending half across the stage. When it came to rest, transparently illuminated, it was neatly transected by the pin. Optical illusion. This was lepidoptery at scale.
A curtain descended, fashioned as the door of a museum display case, glass framed in wood, labelled ‘Butterfly’ at the bottom. Insect and pin were trapped. Possessed. On show. The display case door thunked shut.
With that elegant, deft, uncompromising, silent visual we were told everything we needed to know about the fate of our heroine, Cio-Cio-San. She had been right royally skewered by the dastard American naval Lieutenant Pinkerton. And would remain so. The visual was operatic genius.
Madama Butterfly, written by Puccini in 1904, libretto Luigi Illica, highlights the cultural tensions between Japan and America. Doesn’t pass today’s bien pensant smell tests. Cultural appropriation, blah, blah.
Rubbish. Written just before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) – “World War Zero” – it was for Puccini a prescient political and social commentary. A harbinger of the disastrous decline in Japanese-American relations that would eventually explode in the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. A protest at America’s swaggering and flawed assumption of social superiority.
At the time, US and Japanese interests seemed to be aligned. Both nations supported the idea of an “open door” for the commercial exploitation of China. US President Theodore Roosevelt acted as a mediator at the end of the war, at Japan’s request. The two sides of the conflict met on neutral territory in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. American courtesy naval visits to Japan were frequent.
But there were tensions. Lieutenant Pinkerton, on shore leave from the USS Abraham Lincoln, stretched the meaning of courtesy to breaking point. He rented a Japanese house with all mod cons. Cio-Cio-San came as an optional extra – wife, not wifi – their marriage contract cancellable, like the lease, on one month’s notice.
The plot of Madama Butterfly is well known and for those unfamiliar with it a synopsis is here. This review will focus on the Visser production. For the obsessively comparative, a review of the current Metropolitan Opera Anthony Minghella production is here.
Both directors determined to take Butterfly back to the opera’s Japanese cultural roots, stripping away the layers of pastiche that many western productions of Madama Butterfly have often painted on thick. A gilt complex.
We find ourselves slightly out of period. Visser, up to his inventive tricks, first brings us to the drama through the eyes of an invented character, Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San’s now adult son. It is 1952, when America occupied Japan after the Second World War, in the Tokyo National Museum. For ten minutes before the orchestra strikes up and as the audience assembles the museum is on view, tourists, schoolchildren, honeymooners, all strolling through, admiring the exhibits.
Huge care was taken to ensure every piece on display was an exact copy of the original. “Down to the last nail, it is Japanese”, says Visser who visited the museum in 2017. He is a fan of onsite visits. For his acclaimed 2022 Glyndebourne La bohème production, he trawled the streets of Paris before he found his genuine dark street setting.
Pinkerton, his American wife, and son tour the exhibits. We are to see the opera from the son’s perspective. He is there to learn about his birth mother. The opera opens back in 1923, Acts II and III are in 1926. Let the director speak for himself.
“Act I papa tells the son, ‘This is how I met your mother’. Act II the son (who is an onstage presence throughout) – effectively tells his father, ‘This is how my life was when you weren’t there for us… you horrific bastard.’ Then, in Act III it all explodes… or, rather implodes”.
“All these museum pieces have a role to play in the story and trigger memories of the son. Don’t forget, he was three or four years old when his mother committed suicide. Trip down memory lane in the Tokyo National Museum.”
As a taught synopsis Visser’s precis takes some beating. Although the son as an adult is supernumerary and, of course, without a singing role, his constant presence adds weight to the drama, especially the unexpected dramatic climax at the conclusion. No spoiler. Wait for it.
The common interpretation of the Cio-Cio-San story is that she was deceived by Pinkerton. Visser’s portrayal is more worrying. She entered the marriage with eyes wide open to his treachery. He highlights this exchange in the libretto.
Pinkerton:
Give me your darling hands that I may kiss them.
My Butterfly! aptly your name was chosen,
Gossamer creation… [at these words Butterfly’s face clouds over and she withdraws her hands]
Butterfly:
They say that in your country,
If a butterfly [with an expression of fear]
is caught by man,
He’ll pierce its heart with a needle, [with anguish] And then leave it to perish!
Pierce her heart Pinkerton does and, just in case we missed the point, that whacking great butterfly, needle-skewered and entombed in glass and wood, was there to remind us at the end of Act I.
No attention to detail was spared by either Visser or Royal Danish Opera’s (RDO) Director, Elisabeth Linton. She even involved Wagner. No, not Richard. Malene.
Malene Wagner (no relation) advises on Japanese art and aesthetics. Her consultancy, Tiger Tanuki, operates in Paris and Copenhagen specialising in Japanese art and cultural exchange between Japan and the West.
I met her for coffee the day after the performance. She was not involved in the production, but a hilarious series of three videos, shot in the back of an SUV, with Wagner and Visser discussing the production, was used for promotion on the RDO website.
Her aim is “to inspire Japanese art enthusiasts and collectors across generations and cultures”. The challenges of bringing a work like Butterfly, written in the early 20th century to a 21st-century audience with different cultural perceptions should be met head on, not ducked.
The work must not be proscribed by wokists who would love to ban it, I pointed out. Also gunning for Turandot. Not keen on Verdi’s Otello either. Wagner explained the development of Japanese art in the 20th century, accurately reflected in Visser’s production. His rooting of Butterfly in genuine Japanese culture of the era? A positive.
As always with Visser, his attention to detail verges on the obsessive. In the scene where Pinkerton is being shown the Japanese house the ‘estate agent’ makes much of the advantage of its moving walls. So, the walls in the museum move, to represent the house and exhibits make way for the furniture as scenes change.
Butterfly’s determination to believe the myth of Pinkerton’s return is rooted in her contempt for her family who have rejected her for espousing “the American way”. So, she retaliates by becoming American, with trailer trash vigour, wearing a sparkly cocktail dress and being almost permanently on the sauce, to the dismay of her loyal retainer, Suzuki. Cio-Cio-San’s descent into despair and suicide is given a very contemporary feel. She is a Hillary “deplorable”.
Butterfly was sung on the night by Swedish soprano Gisela Stille, who, at the sprightly age of 57, made a brave attempt at a 15-year-old blushing bride. She was not on the original cast list, so probably drafted in at short notice. Sang beautifully.
A bit odd, though, that Pinkerton, Italian tenor Stefano La Colla, her supposed elderly seducer, was 17 years or so her junior. We were venturing into M. et Mme. Macron territory.
And while we are obsessing over detail, Pinkerton sported an annoying toothbrush moustache. In the US Navy, only officers of the rank of Captain and above may adopt lip-hair.
La Colla had a fluid Italian tone, up there with Beniamino Gigli. Italian conductor Paulo Carignane is an RDO regular with experience in Europe and America. He had an excellent feel for the Puccini score, as did the Royal Danish Orchestra, which is top notch.
Factoid. The orchestra makes much of being the oldest in the world, dating back to 1448 and the Trumpet Corps of King Christian I. The only serious challenger for the title might be Fred Flintstone’s Bedrock Combo. But they were probably better known for Yabadaba-Jazz. And didn’t tour.
But, no kidding, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra covered the Bedrock Combo in 2023. Wonders in Scandinavian musical eccentricity never cease.
Royal Danish Opera is fast becoming a ‘must-go’ fixture in my calendar. Not only is the venue stunning, Elisabeth Linton’s eye for the unusual is sharp. The company is staging twelve operas in the 2024/2025 season, including Kasper Holten’s Orest, a chilling Greek drama which takes up where Richard Strauss’ Elektra leaves off.
The Copenhagen audience (a sell-out) cheered the performance to the echo. This was a benchmark Butterfly for our times. Especially in the closing moments.
Cio-Cio-San is dead. Pinkerton steps towards the corpse. His son wields the samurai sword with which his mother has assumed the honour of hara-kiri. (In Japan it is not a crime. It is an honour. You do not “commit” hara-kiri). The boy is poised above his dastard father. Will he? Lights out. We can only guess. Fabulous.
And Another Thing!
The Blackwater Valley Opera Festival, Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland. Never heard of it? Neither had I. About which I hang my head in shame. It’s a summer festival just along the road from Wexford (October/November). The grounds of Lismore Castle make for a spectacular setting. On the go for fourteen years. This year from 27 May – 3 June.
An email appeared unexpectedly in the inbox, offering a tempting programme – Handel’s Giulio Cesare, eleven recitals and three concerts. So, worth dawdling in County Waterford countryside.
An inquiry resulted in a Zoom meeting, set up within minutes by the efficient Blackwater team, with Eamonn Carrol, Festival Director. His is an event with serious intent, focusing on accessibility to music, opera and educational opportunities. There is a funded bursary programme. So, a rural opera festival punching above its weight.
The back of house story. Cavaliere Dieter Kiege, Artistic Director, was a co-founder of the then Lismore Music Festival in 2010. It morphed into The Blackwater Valley Opera Festival in 2018. He had been Artistic Director of Opera Ireland since 1998. Kiege has an international reputation. Clearly made a favourable impression in Italy. Not many receive that distinguished moniker.
Keen to learn more I had that Zoom conversation with Carroll who became Festival Director in 2019. Turned out we had probably bumped into each other in his earlier Wexford days.
Blackwater is well supported – budget in the order of €1m – and now able to attract high-quality performers. Dutch contralto, Ingeborg Bröcheler, takes on the lead role of Cesare. Anna Devin, Irish soprano with a flair for the Baroque, will sing Cleopatra.
Tom Creed, a highly respected Irish opera and stage director will be ordering everyone about and Nicholas McGegan, a conductor celebrated for “delivering Handel’s vital spark”, will be waving his stick at the orchestra.
Started as a delightful but chaotic “pop-up”, Blackwater Valley Opera Festival has morphed into a fully-fledged destination event. Remember, Glyndebourne started in someone’s house, down a leafy Sussex country lane. Add to next year’s bucket list.
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