“Madama Butterfly” is one of the most frequently performed of all operas with gorgeous music that enraptures listeners. It is a masterpiece that survived a 1904 opening which flopped, and it has inspired numerous other works, including “Miss Saigon” and “M. Butterfly.” It has returned to Lyric Opera in a new-to-Chicago production directed by Matthew Ozawa, Lyric’s chief artistic officer. It is surprising, imaginative and bold, but ultimately damages the fundamental story.
Recently, I have seen two operas directed by Ozawa, and they had several things in common; most notably, they begin with something unexpected and splashy, but the concept revealed at the beginning quickly becomes familiar and then, for long stretches of the opera, contributes nothing whatever. By the end, the concept has ceased to be of importance.
This was the case with “Fidelio” last year, where Ozawa’s big idea was to transform Beethoven’s late 18th-century Spanish prison into an American high-tech detention center in the Trump era. The further the opera progressed, the more his unwieldy futuristic prison became irrelevant, and then it actually got in the way of telling the story.
Now, Ozawa has turned his attention to Puccini’s “Butterfly.” His director’s note is primarily an opaque justification for his framing of the piece. He tells us it’s important to consider the lens with which we view the opera, and he litters the note with repeated references to this clichéd way of referring to perspective, even telling us that he investigated his own lens and, more peculiarly, hopes to awaken “your own lens,” whatever that means. Yet he is remarkably coy about what it is that he specifically finds problematic about “Butterfly.”
It’s easy to agree that stereotyped images of Japanese people shouldn’t be used as vehicles to tell the story, that we don’t need yellowface, and we shouldn’t make the Japanese characters robotic figures who are forever shuffling and bowing and acting submissive.
None of that justifies Ozawa’s radical approach, which turns early 20th-century Pinkerton, Butterfly’s American husband, into a current-day dude with a virtual reality helmet who interacts with Butterfly as part of a game. This approach is entertaining to start with, as his cramped apartment transforms into Butterfly’s house and characters make their entrances from amusing places, most memorably via the refrigerator.
By telling us the story is really a game controlled by Pinkerton, Ozawa informs the audience that Butterfly is “trapped with little agency in the opera.” Her story here is really just a Western fantasy of Eastern life. He warns that we should not pretend that “Butterfly is representative of our Japanese American identity.”
And so he and his creative colleagues — all Japanese or Japanese American women: the design collective known as dots, the costume designer Maiko Matsushima, and the lighting designer Yuki Nakase Link — take their revenge on “Butterfly’s” past. The lighting is harsh, and more than once I had to shut my eyes to give them a rest. The costumes for the two western male characters are unusual, possibly drawn from anime or manga themes, and certainly make them look ridiculous. I assume it is inadvertent that Butterfly’s wedding headdress resembles a KKK hood when viewed from the side. The mountain backdrop is cartoonish and the garden looks pixelated, I assume on purpose. After the first act, there is almost no setting at all, with the action taking place in essentially a white box, and I assume the purple hair Butterfly is now sporting is inoffensive to those who are uncomfortable with other productions of this opera.
In the 1980s, Eric Idle of Monty Python fame starred in an English National Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” which was set in England instead of Gilbert’s fanciful Japan. It was a hit and remained quite funny in spite of the setting alteration because the operetta was never really about Japan but about English manners and customs. Similarly, I see “Romeo and Juliet” as a story about star-crossed lovers, not a comment about Verona and how it was outrageously permissive in allowing such a thing to happen.
When I investigate my lens, I see “Butterfly” in a similar way. The essence of this story is how differently a husband and wife view their marriage. It is loving, sacrosanct and a life commitment to 15-year-old Butterfly. It is a transitory convenience for Pinkerton, the older naval officer who knows all along he will abandon her when it is time for him to return home. I don’t see Japan as the defining element of “Butterfly.” It is the story of a teenager in thrall to her passionate love and through her youthful intransigence rejects a later offer of marriage to Yamadori that would keep her and her son in comfort. She has agency, but she makes decisions some of us would not.
Butterfly is a tragedy of lost love. Butterfly is meaningful to us precisely because she takes the most self-sacrificing path in remaining true to this love. Her youth, her inexperience, her powerful trust in fidelity, and her passion for her husband are what drive her, not her country of origin. That is what Puccini’s music tells me. It appears to tell Ozawa something else.
In contrast to its visual and conceptual baggage, there is fine singing and acting in this Butterfly. The standout is tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson as Pinkerton. His singing is luscious; rich and sweet with admirable projection. The director’s concept would allow for an old, fat, ugly man to “live” this story with his VR headset. But even Ozawa couldn’t go that far and gives us a handsome fellow a naive girl could fall in love with.
Soprano Karah Son offers a capable and often engrossing portrayal of the teen who loved and lost. Her defiance of her family and anger at marriage broker Goro are strongly portrayed, but she lacks the radiance and warmth of a truly remarkable Cio-Cio-San. Son is Korean, and many other principals are Asian, but not Japanese. Professor Kunio Hara’s program notes recount an instance where Puccini consulted a Japanese musician while writing “Turandot” (his final opera, set in China), noting that this “indicates a somewhat casual approach to cultural accuracy.” Make of that what you will.
Japanese mezzo-soprano Nozomi Kato is a persuasive Suzuki, forever trying to bring Butterfly to understand that Pinkerton will never reunite with her. She has a strong, engaging voice, and she and Son are beautiful in the flower duet. Baritone Zachary Nelson gives the diplomat Sharpless dignity and gravitas. Tenor Rodell Rosel is splendid as the marriage broker Goro, bringing light and effective humor to an otherwise serious story.
Domingo Hindoyan conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra effectively, and Puccini’s music is given a lush and lovely treatment. The Lyric Opera chorus sounds excellent, and the humming chorus is particularly well done.
Ultimately, even with these fine performances, Ozawa’s production dehumanizes Butterfly and dehumanizes opera. Her loyalty, love, and sacrifice are merely the actions of a simulacrum of human feelings, and the music of this virtual reality game is supposed to be as moving and monumental as that of Puccini. If “Madama Butterfly” can be reduced to this, is it any surprise that actor Timothée Chalamet declared earlier this month that “no one cares” about ballet and opera, comparing them unfavorably to popular films?
I don’t think you can effectively distill any opera into a game or an elaborate Turing test. But if you think opera is just a LARP, this is the production for you.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hpherald.com ’
