Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Glyndebourne, 2018
Omer Meir Wellber, Annilese Miskimmon, Olga Busuioc, Joshua Guerrero, Carlo Bosi, Elizabeth DeShong, Michael Sumuel, Jennifer Witton, Eirlys Myfanwy Davies, Adam Marsden, Oleg Budaratskiy, Simon Mechlinski, Ida Ränzlöv, Shuna Scott Sendall, Michael Mofidian, Jake Muffett
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
I didn't find the 2018 Glyndebourne production of Madama Butterfly to be too adventurous when I first saw it in its streaming broadcast, but in truth few Madama Butterflies can depart with any success from the very specific cultural and historical context that Puccini's opera covers. A bit of emphasis here, a bit of highlighting character traits in one version, playing up or playing down the national stereotypes elsewhere. There's not really a lot of room for manoeuvre. There are however ways that work and ways that don't and Annilese Miskimmon's production, working well with Omer Meir Wellber's conducting of the score, clearly gets across everything that is great about Puccini's masterpiece.
Miskimmon's production at least makes one or two concessions towards modernisation and a break from familiarity and cliché, placing it in a different period and context that seeks to highlight certain harsh realities and truths of its subject. She tries to strike a balance that attempts to bring it a little more up to date rather than appearing to be a situation so far removed from familiar modern attitudes as to appear as almost fantasy. Set in the 1950s, where there was also a post-war trade in Japanese brides to American servicemen, Miskimmon sets Act I not in the familiar surrounds of the idyllic Japanese house perched on the hills over Nagasaki, but in Goro's Marriage Bureau with a tattoo parlour and a cheap hotel in the alley outside.
Projections are used showing genuine documentary newsreel footage of US troops purchasing Japanese brides after the war: "Yanks Marry Japanese Maids", the titles proclaim, with footage showing new brides given instruction on "Learning to be an American Wife". It's perhaps not exactly the same situation as Cio-Cio-San, but even if it's presented in contrast it does highlight the reality. Or if not so much a reality, selling the American dream as a reality. There's no real commentary or emphasis placed on the ethics of it all however, on Pinkerton marrying a 15 year old, collecting her like a butterfly or even commentary on the American imperialism side of things here. It's a simple business transaction, a trade, but one where the two partners are expecting different things.
Keeping Madama Butterfly relatable, Miskimmon also uses old movie footage and in Act II, develops Butterfly's home decor to look like or be Butterfly's attempt to emulate American life learned only from the Technicolor movies of Douglas Sirk. It marks a strong contrast between the reality of the first act and the attempt by Butterfly to live up to her side of the deal by becoming an American wife. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Puccini's music is a perfect match for a Sirk melodrama, the fluctuations of tone and the layers of irony matched also in the shifts of light, the falling leaves, the blaze of autumnal colours and the darkness that is drawing in. Miskimmon also makes good use of the discomfort of Suzuki ("Povera Butterfly"!) and Sharpless to measure out the distance between the dream and the reality.
One of the great benefits of being able to revisit this production on Blu-ray s the opportunity it gives to hear the detail of the musical performance in a High Resolution recording, in surround sound or in lossless LPCM stereo. There are a few obvious pieces of 'retouching' the plaintive sound of what sounds like a distant harmonica accompanying the Humming Chorus, but it's much easier in now to also observe how Omer Meir Wellber catches the ebb and flow of the score that create Puccini's magic. Act III really demonstrates those qualities, in the conducting as much as in Puccini's writing, never laying it on thick, but gently pulling back now and again only to strike forward to hit harder next time, and as such it feels much more in tune with real human feelings.
It only really carries that urgency if the director can make the characters real and for there to be anguish and sympathy on all sides. Pinkerton is often made out to be a villain, and that can spur indignation at his treatment of Cio-Cio-San, but indignation isn't what Madama Butterfly is about. Annilese Miskimmon see it more as a human failing, the Pinkerton of three years later not so much regretting his fake marriage as realising that it was never realistic, as his friend Sharpless repeatedly warned him at the time. It doesn't mean that he is blameless, but it helps to see all sides, and that's what this production seems to be able to balance well, finding the true emotional toll the situation takes on each of them.
Seen that way it's easier to admire the heartfelt performance of Joshua Guerrero's Pinkerton here. It's a little 'operatic' but in the context of a Sirkian response to Puccini it's acceptable and effective. Olga Busuioc's heartfelt Cio-Cio-San also feels deeply human, completely immersed in the role, if rather holding to the conventional mannerisms and gestures. There are the usual reliable performances from Carlo Bosi's Goro and Elizabeth DeShong's Suzuki, regular performers in these roles, but I was more impressed in this viewing by Michael Sumuel's Sharpless. He conveys well the discomfort of this difficult situation, a key sentiment as it is the same one shared by the audience. His singing is is also full of wonderful expression.
Unsurprisingly, the 2018 Glyndebourne Madama Butterfly looks absolutely stunning in the High Definition Blu-ray presentation. The image is clear and sharp, the warm autumnal tones and blue Nagasaki skies glowing off the screen. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5,1 surround gives more ambience to the performance, the LPCM a much more direct punch, but both show off the detail and beauty of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's playing. Extras are limited to a Cast Gallery and an interview with Olga Busuioc on the role and character of Cio-Cio-San, but Annilese Miskimmon also provides some director notes in the enclosed booklet.
Links: Glyndebourne
Showing posts with label Annilese Miskimmon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Annilese Miskimmon. Show all posts
Monday, 12 August 2019
Tuesday, 11 September 2018
Puccini - Madama Butterfly (Glyndebourne, 2018)
Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Glyndebourne, 2018
Omer Meir Wellber, Annilese Miskimmon, Olga Busuioc, Joshua Guerrero, Carlo Bosi, Elizabeth DeShong, Michael Sumuel, Jennifer Witton, Eirlys Myfanwy Davies, Adam Marsden, Oleg Budaratskiy, Simon Mechlinski, Ida Ränzlöv, Shuna Scott Sendall, Michael Mofidian, Jake Muffett
Culturebox - 21 June 2018
Opera houses don't tend to get adventurous when it comes to Madama Butterfly, but there have been some interesting new looks at one of Puccini's most popular works. La Scala in Milan went right back to the original 'failed' 1904 version of the opera that Puccini was forced to rewrite, which was fascinating even if in the end it still played mostly to the conventional locations and imagery. A more abstract Madama Butterfly at La Monnaie in 2017 on the other hand certainly stripped it back of its kitsch Japanese elements and expectations only to prove that most of those elements and the melodrama may be integral to the opera, and it won't work without it. Madama Butterfly almost demands 'safe' by definition, as any attempt to tinker around too much with expectations is unlikely to play well with its target audience.
Madama Butterfly and even the selection of it is surely more a consideration of providing a safe choice for Glyndebourne audiences (and as a touring production) than for any desire to artistically explore the work for new meaning. Annilese Miskimmon's production however makes one or two concessions towards modernisation, placing it in a different period and context that seeks to highlight certain harsh realities and truths of its subject. She tries to strike a balance that attempts to bring it a little more up to date rather than appearing to be a situation so far removed from familiar modern attitudes as to appear as almost fantasy, but there's also clearly a necessity not to throw Butterfly out with the bathwater.
Act I doesn't differ greatly from any traditional representation of the marriage scenes. It's a 50s' setting, where Goro's Marriage Bureau handles matches for US troops with Japanese brides after the war, a situation that is a little more relatable, even if it still carries implications of inequality. Projections are used showing genuine documentary newsreel footage: "Yanks Marry Japanese Maids", with the new brides given instruction on "Learning to be an American Wife". It's perhaps not exactly the same situation as Cio-Cio-San, but even if it's presented in contrast it does highlight the reality. Or if not so much a reality, selling the American dream as a reality. There's no real commentary or emphasis placed on the ethics of it all however, on Pinkerton marrying a 15 year old, collecting her like a butterfly or even commentary on the American imperialism side of things here. It leaves the match it open as if it's something that both parties go into in good faith. The real test of the marriage and the production will come later and there's plenty of opportunity there to feel outrage.
In line with the tone of Puccini's music, Act II does indeed mark a strong contrast to Act I. Butterfly has adopted American lifestyle big time, not just in little details of her manner of western dress, but in her confidence and attitudes as well. Or rather it's more like rather a Japanese view of American life that is influenced by the Technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and I can't imagine any film director who is closer to the sentiments of Madama Butterfly than Douglas Sirk (although you could try Mikio Naruse or Kenji Mizoguchi if you were going for a more authentic view of the perspective of a Japanese woman rather than an American director - or even Yasujiro Ozu's later colour films which show the creeping influence of America on Japanese life in the 1950s). So from that point of view, the 1950s' Sirkian setting works perfectly, working with the light, the colour and the seasons, as leaves fall and darkness draws in.
Thereafter it's wiser to just let Puccini do his work, and this production does just that. Conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, it felt like a relative straightforward interpretation of the score, but there were a few nice touches that worked with the mood and the production. I'm not sure what instrument usually plays the melody in the Humming Chorus, but here it has the distant melancholic sound of a harmonica playing that feels appropriate. It may not be inspiring or inspired, but it's certainly successful in getting across the intended impact and message of the opera. You can't work against Puccini without defeating the purpose of the work and to do that would not only be failing the opera and failing the audience, but in many ways you're failing Cio-Cio-San and many like her in real life over the years.
You'd need to be made of stone to get through Act III unmoved here, the trio of Sharpless, Suzuki and Pinkerton, the choking sobs that are the only answer's to Butterfly's question "Quella donna, che vuol da me?", and the recognition that "Tutto è finito". Watch it through a wet blur, which is as it should be. Which is as much to the credit of the singers here as Puccini. It only really carries that urgency if the director can make the characters real and for there to be anguish and sympathy on all sides. Often Pinkerton is made out to be a villain, and that can spur indignation at his treatment of Cio-Cio-San. Some, including Miskimmon, see it more as a human failing, the Pinkerton of three years later not so much regretting his fake marriage as realising that it was never realistic. It doesn't mean that he is blameless, but it helps to see all sides, and that's what this production seems to be able to balance well, finding the true emotional weight of each.
As such, it's easier to admire the heartfelt performance of Joshua Guerrero's Pinkerton here. It's a little 'operatic' but in the context of a Sirkian response to Puccini it's acceptable and effective. Olga Busuioc handles Cio-Cio-San just as well, if rather holding to the conventional mannerisms and gestures. The experienced Carlo Bosi as Goro, Michael Sumuel's Sharpless and Elizabeth DeShong's Suzuki all support the leads well, although the latter may be a little too emotionally overwrought. Again however, it's to be expected, the cast fulfill what we expect of them, the director and conductor giving us the full Puccini, and the resulting impact is not unexpected either.
Links: Glyndebourne, Culturebox
Glyndebourne, 2018
Omer Meir Wellber, Annilese Miskimmon, Olga Busuioc, Joshua Guerrero, Carlo Bosi, Elizabeth DeShong, Michael Sumuel, Jennifer Witton, Eirlys Myfanwy Davies, Adam Marsden, Oleg Budaratskiy, Simon Mechlinski, Ida Ränzlöv, Shuna Scott Sendall, Michael Mofidian, Jake Muffett
Culturebox - 21 June 2018
Opera houses don't tend to get adventurous when it comes to Madama Butterfly, but there have been some interesting new looks at one of Puccini's most popular works. La Scala in Milan went right back to the original 'failed' 1904 version of the opera that Puccini was forced to rewrite, which was fascinating even if in the end it still played mostly to the conventional locations and imagery. A more abstract Madama Butterfly at La Monnaie in 2017 on the other hand certainly stripped it back of its kitsch Japanese elements and expectations only to prove that most of those elements and the melodrama may be integral to the opera, and it won't work without it. Madama Butterfly almost demands 'safe' by definition, as any attempt to tinker around too much with expectations is unlikely to play well with its target audience.
Madama Butterfly and even the selection of it is surely more a consideration of providing a safe choice for Glyndebourne audiences (and as a touring production) than for any desire to artistically explore the work for new meaning. Annilese Miskimmon's production however makes one or two concessions towards modernisation, placing it in a different period and context that seeks to highlight certain harsh realities and truths of its subject. She tries to strike a balance that attempts to bring it a little more up to date rather than appearing to be a situation so far removed from familiar modern attitudes as to appear as almost fantasy, but there's also clearly a necessity not to throw Butterfly out with the bathwater.
Act I doesn't differ greatly from any traditional representation of the marriage scenes. It's a 50s' setting, where Goro's Marriage Bureau handles matches for US troops with Japanese brides after the war, a situation that is a little more relatable, even if it still carries implications of inequality. Projections are used showing genuine documentary newsreel footage: "Yanks Marry Japanese Maids", with the new brides given instruction on "Learning to be an American Wife". It's perhaps not exactly the same situation as Cio-Cio-San, but even if it's presented in contrast it does highlight the reality. Or if not so much a reality, selling the American dream as a reality. There's no real commentary or emphasis placed on the ethics of it all however, on Pinkerton marrying a 15 year old, collecting her like a butterfly or even commentary on the American imperialism side of things here. It leaves the match it open as if it's something that both parties go into in good faith. The real test of the marriage and the production will come later and there's plenty of opportunity there to feel outrage.
In line with the tone of Puccini's music, Act II does indeed mark a strong contrast to Act I. Butterfly has adopted American lifestyle big time, not just in little details of her manner of western dress, but in her confidence and attitudes as well. Or rather it's more like rather a Japanese view of American life that is influenced by the Technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and I can't imagine any film director who is closer to the sentiments of Madama Butterfly than Douglas Sirk (although you could try Mikio Naruse or Kenji Mizoguchi if you were going for a more authentic view of the perspective of a Japanese woman rather than an American director - or even Yasujiro Ozu's later colour films which show the creeping influence of America on Japanese life in the 1950s). So from that point of view, the 1950s' Sirkian setting works perfectly, working with the light, the colour and the seasons, as leaves fall and darkness draws in.
Thereafter it's wiser to just let Puccini do his work, and this production does just that. Conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, it felt like a relative straightforward interpretation of the score, but there were a few nice touches that worked with the mood and the production. I'm not sure what instrument usually plays the melody in the Humming Chorus, but here it has the distant melancholic sound of a harmonica playing that feels appropriate. It may not be inspiring or inspired, but it's certainly successful in getting across the intended impact and message of the opera. You can't work against Puccini without defeating the purpose of the work and to do that would not only be failing the opera and failing the audience, but in many ways you're failing Cio-Cio-San and many like her in real life over the years.
You'd need to be made of stone to get through Act III unmoved here, the trio of Sharpless, Suzuki and Pinkerton, the choking sobs that are the only answer's to Butterfly's question "Quella donna, che vuol da me?", and the recognition that "Tutto è finito". Watch it through a wet blur, which is as it should be. Which is as much to the credit of the singers here as Puccini. It only really carries that urgency if the director can make the characters real and for there to be anguish and sympathy on all sides. Often Pinkerton is made out to be a villain, and that can spur indignation at his treatment of Cio-Cio-San. Some, including Miskimmon, see it more as a human failing, the Pinkerton of three years later not so much regretting his fake marriage as realising that it was never realistic. It doesn't mean that he is blameless, but it helps to see all sides, and that's what this production seems to be able to balance well, finding the true emotional weight of each.
As such, it's easier to admire the heartfelt performance of Joshua Guerrero's Pinkerton here. It's a little 'operatic' but in the context of a Sirkian response to Puccini it's acceptable and effective. Olga Busuioc handles Cio-Cio-San just as well, if rather holding to the conventional mannerisms and gestures. The experienced Carlo Bosi as Goro, Michael Sumuel's Sharpless and Elizabeth DeShong's Suzuki all support the leads well, although the latter may be a little too emotionally overwrought. Again however, it's to be expected, the cast fulfill what we expect of them, the director and conductor giving us the full Puccini, and the resulting impact is not unexpected either.
Links: Glyndebourne, Culturebox
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Frid - The Diary of Anne Frank
Opera Theatre Company, 2011
Andrew Synnott, Annilese Miskimmon, Ingrid Craigie, Ani Maldijan
Waterfront Studio, Belfast - 20th October 2011
As the recent rediscovery of Weinberg’s The Passenger has shown at its long delayed premiere at Bregenz in 2010 and in the transfer of that highly acclaimed production to the English National Opera, in the hands of a good composer stories around the Holocaust can be dealt with in opera not only in a sensitive manner, but in a way that manages to get to the heart of a subject that is difficult to express through a more conventional dramatic format. As the title and consequently the source of Grigory Frid’s opera work suggests however, a rather different and more intimate approach is required for such an important and well-known work as The Diary of Anne Frank.
Composed in 1972 as a one-act mono-opera (to be sung by one person), there is thankfully no attempt by the Russian composer, now 96 years old, to extend the scope of the diary by dramatising scenes and introducing any of the family or peripheral characters that Anne Frank writes about. While this maintains an integrity and an intimacy to the nature of the diary-format, it provides other considerable challenges for the composer. Not only does Frid have to compress Anne’s thoughts and remarkable observations down into a work that is under an hour long while retaining the essence and importance of what she writes about, but the sheer enormity of expressing those thoughts and emotions through music, through a chamber orchestra of nine musicians moreover, must also surely have been a daunting prospect.
It’s to the credit of Grigory Frid – and also to the performers of the Opera Theatre Company’s 2010 production of The Diary of Anne Frank revived here for the 2011 Belfast Arts Festival – that the qualities of Anne Frank’s writing and its impact is perfectly accompanied by the music in a manner that is wholly appropriate. There’s a difficult balance to maintain however in accompanying the libretto (taken directly from Anne’s diary and not rewritten) with theatre music that matches the tone and the tempo of the writing, but which is also expressive in its own right without over-emphasising the words and without imposing any false sentimentality, which would be so easy to do. The piano led-score with the chamber orchestration however is surprisingly varied and inventive, slightly avant-garde in places, jazzy in others, plaintive and reflective when necessary, yet always seeming to be perfectly pitched towards the content, the emotions and the underlying implications about the Holocaust that aren’t directly expressed in the libretto.
It’s difficult also to approach a staging of such a work with only one singer, but the production design by Nicky Shaw and the simple but remarkably effective lighting design by Tina MacHugh were equally as impressive here, the staging as imaginative and inventive and as complementary to the opera work as anything I’ve seen on a grander scale. With only a single piece of background, the stage was nevertheless transformed by its opening up, like a book or diary flipped open by the singer herself, the “pages” containing windows and relief designs that evoked the enclosed world of Anne Frank. Other props were drawn from under floorboards, again giving the impression of hiding and secrecy, of being pop-ups from a book, as well as being imagery drawn from Anne’s own personal world. The simple profile outline of a child, reflected in light and shadow during Anne’s dream of her friend Liess, perhaps the best example of enormous effectiveness through such simple means.
That applies to the score, it applies to the staging, but it also applies to the singing. A perfectly pitched performance from Ani Maldijan took into consideration the nature of the subject of the libretto as well the fact that it is being delivered by a young girl and she sang it simply, heart-felt yet unadorned, allowing the strength of the words – drawn directly from Anne Frank’s writing – to speak for themselves without any inappropriate or unnecessary over-emphatic mannerisms. A beautiful and powerful little work, the Opera Theatre Company’s impressive staging and performance of The Diary of Anne Frank was not only considerate of the nature of the work and its source, but like Frid’s composition itself, it helps keep the meaning of Anne Frank’s diary relevant and alive, reaching out to more and more people. Long may it continue to run.
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