MADAMA BUTTERFLY

by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Giacomo Puccini in 1898

01 - Giacomo Puccini

The man

What kind of a man was Puccini? He was handsome, had infinite charm, gentleness, direct and affectionate manners, kindness and modesty even at the height of his fame. He had a sense of humour coupled to a caustic wit. In dealing with his librettists, his good nature used to take for the worse, capable of biting and wounding remarks. He was sartorially elegant. He became famous and very popular in the world of opera to this day.

Puccini shied away from publicity, was sensitive and vulnerable. He was an avid reader and an incessant traveller. His way of life seemed to count on the principles of hedonism. It may be that, for inner equilibrium and to recharge his drive for music, he needed the titillation of sensual pleasures: the excitement of the hunt, the thrill of speed in cars and boats, the taste of culinary delights and, above all, the pursuit of extra-marital dalliances.

The artist

Because of his vivid imagination and immense talent, Puccini compels us to recognise a theatrical world peculiarly of his own. He is the complete master of such world, where love, erotic passion, tenderness, pathos and despair meet and intertwine. We identify ourselves intimately with these human emotions and fill our senses with expectation at the prospect of seeing new productions of his operas.

His accomplishments in writing music which is characteristically tuneful are extraordinary. He is never tedious, prolix or long-winded. He is convinced that an aria is great provided it is melodious and, for maximum effect, not too long. It has to make the listener want to hear more of it. He is a borderline case between genius and talent, the great and not so great. Like Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, Puccini is rather difficult to categorise.

02 - Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts (originally two) based on a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, drawn from a play by David Belasco. The playwright found inspiration in the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long. The world premiere was at La Scala, Milan, on 17 February 1904. The American premiere, in English, took place at Washington, DC, on 15 October 1906.

The world premiere was a colossal fiasco due mainly to a hostile Milanese audience. Puccini revised the opera by dividing the long second act into two, doing away with some ten per cent of a 400 page score and adding a tenor arioso Addio fiorito asil. When presented at the Teatro Grande di Brescia three months later, on 28 May 1904, the revised opera was a triumphant success, which launched it to a rapid conquest of world opera theatres.

Some conductors lean towards an uncut (or almost uncut) Butterfly. Others like to restore a little of the material Puccini removed. Still, others consider the Paris version as the most authentic, recognizing that it is the tightest version musically even if the necessity for two intervals breaks the drama's continuity and ekes out the evening. There is a general consensus that the best solution is to make all or most of Puccini's cuts but to retain his original two-act format and sometimes to restore passages usually omitted.

The plot summary

Act I: Pinkerton marries a young geisha girl, Cio-Cio-San [Butterfly]. He takes his vows lightly but she is serious about them. After the ceremony, her uncle arrives and repudiates her for having desecrated the ancient cult.

Act II: Left alone for three years, Cio-Cio-San remains faithful and does not believe that Pinkerton has abandoned her. The Consul, Sharpless, pays her a visit, reads her a letter from Pinkerton but hides from her his marriage to an American wife.

Act III: Pinkerton and his new bride Kate arrive, intending to take away Cio-Cio-San's son, Trouble, born out of her union with Pinkerton. She commits suicide with her father's dagger convinced she dies with honour.

The opera

In spite of its problems, Madama Butterfly, even in its Paris version, is Puccini's greatest opera. In it, he achieved a beauty, subtlety and expressive intensity he never surpassed. Boheme is more melodic, Tosca more powerful and his later operas, Fanciulla, Tabarro and Turandot, are more sophisticated but Butterfly is the linchpin of his entire output and the long struggle with it suggests that he was aware of its great value. In the composer's own words, Butterfly is, "The most felt and suggestive opera I have ever conceived".

It contains an element of true tragedy. Faced by three choices, marriage to Prince Yamadori or resumption of her former profession or death, Cio-Cio-San makes the most courageous choice. Caught in a moral conflict, she solves it by self-destruction and thus configures a heroine in the true sense of the word. Except for Kate, she has no other antagonists: Pinkerton is a catalyst to set her tragedy in motion; Sharpless and Suzuki are satellites revolving around the Cio-Cio-San's planet, serving to intensify the quivering humanity of the little geisha.

The love scene of act I, 'Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia', is an ebb and flow of ardour and sentiment, is structured perfectly, is atmospheric, melodious and the longest of all Puccini's love duets. In act II, Pinkerton's conspicuous and long absence throws Butterfly down an empty spiral of pain, despair and ecstatic hope for 'Un bel di vedremo'. In the arioso 'Addio fiorito asil' of act III, Pinkerton is late and excruciatingly remorseful for having negated Butterfly's faithfulness and love. He stands for a musical and dramatic invention without precedence in opera.

03 - The opera performers

Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the 46th edition of Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago Puccini, Tuscany, in 2000

MAJOR CAST

Maria Pia Ionata as Cio-Cio-San (S)

Fulvia Bertoli as Suzuky (Ms)

Salvatore Fisichella as F.B. Pinkerton (T)

Sergio Bologna as Sharpless (Bar)

Orchestra: Cittá Lirica conducted by Mario Perusso

Chorus: Coro del Festival Puccini under Stefano Visconti

Direction: Vivien Alexandra Hewitt

Scenes: Kan Yasuda

Costumes: Regina Schecker

Lights: Valerio Alfieri

04 - Media files (removed)

Audio file

1. Act I

Quale smania vi prende

Sharpless, Pinkerton..........3:45

(11/4/06)

Video files

1. Act I

Io sono la fanciulla più lieta del Giappone

Butterfly, chorus..........3:34

(18/4/06)

2. Act I

Dolce notte, quante stelle

Butterfly, Pinkerton........3:23

(20/4/06)

3. Act II

Un bel dì vedremo

Butterfly..............5:13

(27/4/06)

4. Act II

Quanti fiori

Butterfly, Suzuki..........4:06

(29/4/06)

5. Act III

Addio fiorito asil

Pinkerton............4:00

(6/5/06)

6. Act III and finale

Con onore muore

Butterfly............5:29

(8/5/06)

Note (ed.)

To play back the video clips on your computer

INSTALL THE REAL PLAYER 10 or WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 10 or WINAMP

The video clips should be played on the PC by opening them with any of the three players above. The WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 10 skins offer a variety of controls for sound and video. The video clips are multi bit rate codec files of the wmv type. The clip sound is excellent, colour is good and video is very good. Streaming was done at 250 kbps video (suitable for cable and DSL connections) to reduce weight and speed up downloading.

The REAL PLAYER 10 is recommended. Due to a high compression, blurring and unsteadiness of the images set in when viewed at 2x video area and are worse on a full screen. I open the setting at 1x video area and use the mouse to drag down the player window bottom edge and drag out the left edge to obtain a 1.20x or 1.30x video area. This action is extremely satisfactory, giving a good video area with sharp and steady images.

05 - Review by members of the panel

Joseph Fragala

Pierre Loti, a French naval officer, wrote about his experiences in 1860 Japan and published them in a celebrated novel, Madame Chrysanthème (1887), which set a fashion for Japanese subjects in Western literature and opera. There were novels by Lafcadio Hearn, an operetta, Sullivan's The Mikado (1885), a musical play, Jones' The Geisha (1896) and San Toy (1899), a light opera, Messager's Madame Chrysanthème (1893), and an opera, Mascagni's Iris (1898). The literary and musical fruits culminated in Puccini's masterpiece (1904). Madama Butterfly at Torre del Lago Puccini in 2000 is a marvellous and emotive performance, due to a great vocality of the four major soloists, comprimary and chorus of merit, an exotic and symbolised scene staged outdoors, neat distinct video takes, quality sound, lavish costumes and a languid interpretation by the orchestra conductor. Maria Pia Ionata is feminine, very good looking and may seem to be too

"doll-like" for the part (video 1, 2 and 4). Surprisingly, the soprano turns on a vocality of power and drama in Un bel di vedremo (video 3) and of verismo in Tu, tu piccolo Iddio (video 6). Her latter rendition is superior to Renata Scotto's, highly regarded by many in the role of Tosca and Butterfly. Salvatore Fisichella has a matchless tenor voice which is coloured, sumptuous in the middle and glorious in the upper register. The tenor is elegant in the summer and winter uniforms (video 2 and 5), moves like an actor, interprets Pinkerton excellently and shows great affinity to Puccini. His rendition of the arioso Addio fiorito asil (video 5) is as good as and perhaps superior to those of legendary tenors who come to mind. Sergio Bologna impresses me for a well produced baritone voice. As Sharpless, he is really interesting, the detached and complacent consul being interpreted with indignation and reprimand (audio in home and video in gallery). Fulvia Bertoli makes the best of mezzosoprano gentle notes (video 4) and top notes (audio in home and video in gallery) as the disconsolate and anxious maid, Suzuki, in a part which offers little opportunity for her vocal prowess and acting.

Lynn Samohel

Madama Butterfly premiere at La Scala on 17 February 1904 with a splendid cast, Rosina Storchio as Butterfly, Giovanni Zenatello as Pinkerton and Giuseppe di Luca as Sharpless.The opera was a fiasco and Puccini faced it with the heart in his mouth. Major newspapers screamed 'Puccini hissed', 'Fiasco at La Scala', 'Butterfly, the diabetic opera', 'Result of an accident', etc. The composer wrote to a friend, 'I am shocked by all that happened and not so much for what they did to my poor Butterfly but for all the poison they spat on me as an artist and a man'.The composer and publisher withdrew the opera and changes were made before its second production, three months later in Brescia. Madama Butterfly is one of those rare cases of an opera libretto which is an improvement on the original. The production of Butterfly at the 46th edition of Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago, Tuscany, in 2000 was definitely a winner. It was well produced, nicely staged and perfectly sung. Maria Pia Ionata as Cio Cio San is a visually engaging Butterfly and her clear, girlish voice goes a long way when needed. It rises from the choir with the excitement of a young girl and changes slowly through the performance into the mature voice of a real woman. The scene of this production I enjoy is Butterfly's entrance in act I. Beautiful! I also give her 10 out of 10 for her final scene of the opera. It is very dramatically and perfectly sung. In his interpretation of Pinkerton, Salvatore Fisichella looks like a real, dashing officer of the US Navy and a philandering man infatuated with the fifteen years old Butterfly, 'not content with life unless he makes the flowers on every shore his own treasure'. Salvatore successfully portrays Pinkerton the way he was and sings it even better. He has an absolutely ageless voice with a vibrant and flexible tone that handles the difficulties of Puccini's vocal requirements with ease. Sergio Bologna, as Sharpless, is a smooth, convincing baritone and a natural on the stage, basing myself on the short scene I saw. Fulvia Bertoli, as Suzuki, displays a voice which is very clear and pertains to a true mezzosoprano, has a luscious and plummy timber, individuality and a good diction. The outdoor stage design is interesting; the costumes are faithful to the period and gorgeous to look.

Dragos Tomescu

Madama Butterfly was Puccini's preferred opera and, consequently he suffered enormously facing the cruel fiasco of its premiere. But, after he revised the libretto and music, the opera had a tremendous success and has remained one of the most sung of his entire creation, together with Tosca, La Boheme and Manon Lescaut. The title role has been sung by the great sopranos of the last century, beginning with Storchio and ending with Scotto and Freni. Pinkerton has also been sung by great tenors from Zenatello to Gedda. I've listened to this performance with Maria Pia Ionata and Salvatore Fisichella a short time after I had listened to the great creation of Victoria de Los Angeles in the complete RCA Edition of 1959 together with Jussi Bjorling and Mario Sereni, a recording which I recommend to all opera lovers. I could not help comparing the two sopranos. They both have great voices, though I find that Los Angeles' voice is more technical. In fact, Victoria de Los Angeles is one the greatest Butterfly of the XX century together with Tebaldi, Scotto and Freni. Maria Pia Ionata is one of the best Puccinian sopranos of our time, her performances in La Boheme, Manon Lescaut, Tosca and Madama Buttefly being highly acclaimed. She portrays the role of Cio-Cio-San with superb sensitivity. She changes the colour of her voice from lyrical in the first act to dramatic in the last act and, in my view, this is the main characteristic required from a soprano who interprets the role: Be able to "transform" herself from an innocent girl to a mature woman. The only blemish is that she pushes her voice in the dramatic scenes and the vibrato changes to a wobble sometimes. Maybe it is a sign of a temporary voice fatigue or maybe the toll of singing heavy roles such as Tosca and Manon Lescaut too soon. Salvatore Fisichella, as usual, is great with agility of top notes (he sings a great high C at the end of the first act duet). The aria 'Addio fiorito asil', written by Puccini when he revised the music after the fiasco, is a little gem and Fisichella's rendition is ever so languid! Sergio Bologna is a convincing Sharpless with a natural and full baritone voice. Fulvia Bertoli, as Suzuki, displays a large mezzo voice with a good diction and nice timbre. The stage design is interesting, resembles the Japanese traditional theatre and the costumes are faithful to the period.

Credit Table (Total marks 20/20)

The total marks for the soloists are based on vocality and acting ability

l    Lynn

j    Joseph                                                                                                                  k   Keith

a   Andrei                                                                                                                   d   Dragos                                                                                                                 m   Mihai

(j.f.)

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The Panel
s.f. Salvatore Fisichella

l.s. Lynn Samohel

m.m. Michèle Muller

j.f. Joseph Fragala
g.m. Geoff Mallinson
a.t. Andrei Turcu
k.s. Keith Shilcock
d.t. Dragos Tomescu          m.b. Mihai Bogdan