Losing the Plot in Opera by Brian Castles-Onion

Author:Brian Castles-Onion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Music/General
ISBN: Losing the Plot in Opera
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Madama Butterfly

What can be said about Madama Butterfly that hasn’t already been said? Lots. For me, it’s a work that remains ever fresh. Each time I come to work on the score there’s something new to discover. The story is wonderful and it’s a great role for a soprano who has even the slightest dramatic tendencies. She is absolutely the star and even a bad performance can’t kill the genius of Signor Puccini.

Before I sat through a staged performance of Madama Butterfly, many of the melodies were familiar to me from recordings of the famous arias and duets. I had to see what the fuss was about so as a child, and with only a plot summary, I listened to a recording without interruption. I lasted the two hours’ playing time but was confused about why this was such a lauded work. Mind you, I was terribly young and the only relationship I had had was with my teddy bear. What could I have known of Cio Cio San’s emotional predicament, even though it was painted so perfectly in the music?

A beloved and noted Cio Cio San once reminisced about her study with the teacher, and legendary soprano, Lotte Lehmann. After seeing the 14-year-old soprano as Mimi in La Bohème, Madame Lehmann sent her a note scribbled on the back of a publicity shot, describing her pleasure in the performance. But she suggested that the girl should ‘go out and experience life’ before singing the role again. The following season, Madame Lehmann attended the same young soprano’s first Madama Butterfly – yes, she was 15, the actual age of Cio Cio San – and sent another note on the reverse of a photo complimenting her on her quick study of life.

Puccini had been inspired to write the opera after seeing it as a play in the United States. Even though he spoke little English – the language of the play by David Belasco and John Luther Long – he was so moved by the performance that he had to place his operatic stamp on it. Several years later the opera was premiered in Milan but not well received. Puccini revised bits of the score and this version premiered three months later, on 28 May 1904, in Brescia. This is the score that we generally use in performance, though there are sections of Puccini’s original that I adore. For instance, the rather small role of Kate Pinkerton is somewhat bigger, more important and extra bitchy. Puccini’s later revisions of the opera leave Kate’s character fairly faceless. It’s a thankless role for the singer because she has to wait all night to appear, then she’s only on stage for about five minutes. She gets no sympathy from the audience either.

Puccini was a man of the theatre. He wanted his opera to reflect life. Just as his mini-opera Suor Angelica takes about 20 minutes to really get going, presumably to reflect everyday life in the convent, so Madama Butterfly opens with the business of wedding preparations.

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