Displaying items by tag: Madama Butterfly

Created in 1904, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has become one of the world’s greatest and most popular operas.  New York’s Metropolitan Opera alone had performed it 902 times prior to the beginning of its 2023-24 season.  Renowned for his gifts for melody, Puccini’s musical component is ravishingly beautiful.  His manner of intermixing cultural references into his orchestration also makes it exquisitely complex.  Enhanced with a gripping story about the power of trust and the fragility of love, Madama Butterfly qualifies as an irrefutable masterpiece. Throughout its existence though, the opera has also been an artistic triumph with issues.

An adaptation of a one-act play written in 1900, which itself was based on a short story by an American author, John Luther Long two years earlier, it’s been criticized as being a flawed fantasy.  One created by white men about the essence of another culture.  In this case, Japan.  In Madama Butterfly, an American, Lt. B. F. Pinkerton, arrives in the island country and soon begins a quest for love.  A love that he never plans to be lasting.  Once he returns state side, he’ll re-enter the mainstream and marry traditionally.

Since its origin, issues of perception and portrayal have always haunted Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.  He composed it in partnership with Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica who wrote the text or libretto.  For most of the opera’s existence, the way Japanese culture and its people were projected robbed them of dimension and ultimately diminished their humanity.  In both early productions of the opera and in virtually all that followed, Japanese men saw their virility erased while Japanese women watched their deference be reduced to an exaggerated docility.  As intrinsically lovely Madama Butterfly is as a creative jewel, for the Japanese people and many others of color, it has also been deeply problematic.

For Matthew Ozawa, Director and Chief Artistic Officer of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, it was as well.  As a Japanese-American director of operatic works, his relationship with Puccini’s masterpiece has been fraught.   He knew intrinsically as a director he could never present it in a conventional way.  If he were ever to take on the challenge of staging the piece, he would do it through more enlightened eyes.  The current production of Madama Butterfly he directs at the Lyric, running through April 12^th, shows how spectacular a 122-year-old classic can look and feel with a total makeover by a gifted artisan.

Ozawa’s Madama Butterfly, co-produced by the Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburg Opera, Detroit Opera and the Utah Opera, dismantles the old format and completely rebuilds it in a contemporary context.  The overhaul was so comprehensive, keeping the original orchestration and libretto unaltered and intact was a condition for greenlighting his vision.   

The Company of Madama Butterfly.

Like many men of his generation, Ozawa loved playing video games growing up.  It wasn’t a leap for him to envision Madama Butterfly taking on the features of a machine generated video game offering a portal to an alternate reality.  Pinkerton (tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson) would travel to Japan through his headset and begin a journey that would lead to the devastating consequences we all know will follow.

But first, like any talented leader, Ozawa needed to assemble a team to bring his concept to fruition.  Based on opening night’s performance at the Lyric, a better dream team probably doesn’t exist.  Recruiting all females as his key collaborators, who were either Japanese or Japanese-American, cultural accuracy and agency would no longer be a concern.  Each of them a heavy hitter in her respective craft, the composite experience they created was so remarkable it could easily be considered revelatory.  The superb impact of Kimie Nishikawa’s set designs and Yuki Nakase Link’s lighting talents made on the production’s visual potency and dynamism can’t be overstated. 

A muted background would suddenly blaze in dramatic color and fill with subtly ornate splendor when Pinkerton donned the goggles that would transport him to Japan. There, Maiko Matsushima’s costume designs bowled you away with their texture, imagination, sophistication and beauty.

Even when we first finally meet Cio-Cio-San, Butterfly, played by Karah Son, we’re visited with the unexpected.  She’s as small and delicate as butterflies are, but in her words and carriage you sense the steel in her spine.  At 15, she may have become a geisha to support herself, but she’s clearly proud of the fact that she’s also “well-bred”.   That inner dignity is an ever-present element of her character. 

Son has played this crucial character in houses around the globe; in her native Korea, Warsaw, Berlin, Bologna, Los Angeles and San Francisco just to list a few.  This production marks her Lyric debut.  She knows this part.  From the excellence of her soprano Saturday night, and the flawlessness of her acting abilities, she is this part.   

Johnson, a wonderful tenor who’s also making his debut at the Lyric, makes a compelling Pinkerton.  He doesn’t quite comprehend the import of his words when Sharpless (Zachary Nelson) tells him to “Be Careful, she trusts you”, until it’s too late.  Finally realizing what that trust has cost releases his humanity.  But it can’t stop the payment deception exacts.

In the final scene, where only pathos is expected, this presentation all but blinds you with the complex beauty of real life through the fiction of a story.  Ozawa’s brilliant directing, Son’s gifts as a marvelous actress/vocalist and Puccini’s stunning score converge to cause the soul to quake.  

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly now truly soars.

Madama Butterfly

Through April 12, 2026

Lyric Opera of Chicago

20 N. Wacker Drive

Chicago, IL  60606

For more information and tickets:   https://www.lyricopera.org

Highly Recommended

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

It’s interesting to view the world through the lens of an early 20th century Italian opera composer. When “Madama Butterfly” by Puccini premiered in Milan in 1904 it was met with abysmal reviews. Audiences clamored that he had recycled music from his previous hit “La Boheme” which seems like the least of this opera’s problematic themes by today’s standards. After some quick revisions, “Madama Butterfly” emerged as one of the most recognizable operas in the world. Lyric Opera kicks off 2020 with a thrilling revival. 

“Madama Butterfly” is itself an adaptation of an 1898 short story by John Luther Long. Puccini worked with librettist Luigi Illica to bring this tragic semi-true story to the stage. The beloved opera has since been adapted many times since, mostly notably as “Miss Saigon”.  Puccini’s opera tells the story of a teenage girl who marries an American naval officer on a tour of duty in Japan. To him it’s a fake marriage so that he may sleep with her. To her, it’s true love. Predictably, the naval officer Pinkerton (Brandon Jovanovich) abandons her and she is left with a naïve hope that he will return to her. Despite other offers of marriage, Butterfly clings to the fantasy of Pinkerton while her maid Suzuki (Deborah Nansteel) shields her from a bitter reality. 

The opera was originally written in two acts, but audiences were left confused and disappointed. Puccini split the second act in two and inserted a hauntingly beautiful entr’act. Is this the best Puccini opera? Probably not. Where it excels at drama, it somewhat falters in the catchy melodies traditionally expected of Puccini. Afterall, it is Puccini whom we have to thank for influencing some of the best modern musical theatre composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Boublil/Schonberg. 

Lyric’s gorgeous revival directed by Louisa Muller seems understated. A subdued orchestra puts the spotlight on the cast, who more than delivers. Lyric stage favorite Ana Maria Martinez and Deborah Nansteel give two powerhouse performances. Martinez has a sung the role many times in her storied career and Lyric’s current production should be considered a real treat. 

Puccini and Illica’s perception are that Americans take what “fortunes” they want around the world with little regard to those they hurt. Puccini even goes so far as to sample the American national anthem many times throughout the opera. It’s deployed at such opportune moments that it would be impossible to read as flattery. Though, Puccini’s problematic orientalism in many of his operas often makes patrons bristle at unintentional stereotyping of Asian culture. While some of the themes of “Madama Butterfly” make modern audiences uncomfortable, what can’t be denied is that Puccini gave us some of the most accessible and entertaining operas ever composed. “Madama Butterfly” despite its flaws achieves what good theatre should. It grabs us by the heartstrings with an enchanting score and a compelling script. 

Through March 8th at Lyric Opera Chicago. 20 N Upper Wacker Drive. (312) 827-5600