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

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

Puccini - Madama Butterfly (London, 2017)

Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly

Royal Opera House, London - 2017

Antonio Pappano, Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier, Ermolela Jaho, Marcelo Puente, Scott Hendricks, Elizabeth Deshong, Carlo Bosi, Jeremy White, Yuriy Yurchuk, Emily Edmonds

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Straight off I'm sure you can think of two good reasons why you would want to watch yet another version of Madama Butterfly, this one recorded at the Royal Opera House in 2017. The first reason is that it's conducted by Antonio Pappano, who has delivered some sublime performances of Puccini at Covent Garden. The second is Ermonela Jaho and again it's primarily for her Puccini, first really coming to attention of the London audience in Suor Angelica. There's a third reason obviously, which is the opera itself which is sure to have a compelling charge with this combination of artists.

As it happens you won't be disappointed or let down by any of those expectations. What is rarer, and which you might not see at the Royal Opera House production nor expect to see, is a production that successfully explores the work in any new way or adapts its themes. No matter what else a director brings to Madama Butterfly it simply has to deliver on colour, spectacle and exoticism above all else. Much like Richard Jones' recent refresh of the Royal Opera House's La Bohème, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier keep this production relatively traditional but hopefully not too familiar, allowing it to be adaptable to the tone and themes of the work rather than simply providing pretty picture postcard imagery.

The house that Pinkerton purchases for his new Japanese bride then retains the familiar paper panelled walls of a traditional Japanese house, but they are oversized screens that when raised offer different views and backgrounds. Initially we have a period photo view of Nagasaki when Pinkerton arrives, a cherry blossom and rolling hills in a Japanese painting for Cio-Cio-San's arrival that has the same stylised feel as the Royal Opera House's Turandot, making it look like the ROH are aiming for a middle-of-the-road consistent style in their Puccini operas (and perhaps elsewhere).

The production retains the familiarity of the location, keeps the costumes traditional and sticks to the themes of culture clash and romantic ideals. The background representation and lighting however become a little more abstractly tied to the emotional undercurrents as the opera progresses. The background goes black for the stormy arrival of the Bonze and Kate Pinkerton first appears as an ominous shadow silhouetted against the screens outside. The end of Butterfly's dreams is accompanied by the falling blooms of a magnolia, again against a death black background.

As expected then Ermonela Jaho's performance is worth seeing. She doesn't always have the fullness of voice that you need for the role, but there's some lovely singing here, true passion and a strong dramatic performance, all of which combined succeed in hitting you where it hurts. Pappano is equally adept turning it on and holding back at all the right places, showing us the cracks beneath the gloss as Butterfly's ideal surrenders to the reality. And regardless of whether the story may be manipulative, there is a heightened emotional realism of the passions in Madama Butterfly that Puccini succeeds in delivering and which the production at least attempts to emulate.

Since we are enumerating good reasons why this particular production is worth watching, the next on the list would be Elizabeth Deshong. No slight on Marcelo Puente who sings Pinkerton well even though he's characterisation here is a little non-committal, but it's Elizabeth Deshong's Suzuki who really impresses, expressing everything that Cio-Cio-San is unable or unwilling to recognise and making it just as heartfelt as those revelations that eventually reach her mistress. Scott Hendricks - ouch! - is sadly well out of his comfort zone as Sharpless and it does unfortunately present a rather jarring effect in the scenes in which he appears. Carlo Bosi on the other hand is an experienced Goro, but - perhaps like the production as a whole - it's all too familiar to really allow any nuance or newness to creep in.

On Blu-ray, Madama Butterfly is a treat for the quality of the visual presentation, not least for how the lossless high resolution audio tracks allow the listener to appreciate the detail of the composition and the quality and dynamism of the musical performance. Extras include an Introduction to the opera, Pappano and Jaho in rehearsal and a Cast Gallery. Helen Greenwald recounts the history of the work's composition, its dramatic inspiration and its oriental musical influences, as well as the now familiar account of the catastrophic reception of the work at its premiere at La Scala in Milan.

Links: Royal Opera House

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

Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream (Aix-en-Provence, 2015 - Webcast)

Benjamin Britten - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2015

Kazushi Ono, Robert Carsen, Sandrine Piau, Lawrence Zazzo, Miltos Yerolemou, Scott Conner, Allyson McHardy, Rupert Charlesworth, John Chest, Elizabeth DeShong, Layla Claire, Brindley Sherratt, Henry Waddington, Michael Slattery, Christopher Gillett, Simon Butterriss, Brian Bannatyne-Scott

Culturebox - July 2015

It's not the greatest idea that Robert Carsen ever had, but his huge bed setting for the 1991 production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, revived here for the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival, is stylish and has remained popular over the years. Although it doesn't seem entirely obvious, its bold conceptual approach isn't entirely without justification either, matching as it does Britten's very distinct and carefully structured take on the original Shakespeare play, while introducing even a little bit of Shakespearean vulgarity that Britten may have glossed over somewhat in the respectful translation to opera.

There is certainly a change of emphasis in Britten's version of the play, which places the dispute between the Fairy King and Queen Oberon and Titania at the centre of the opera. There are also two other love affairs that become entangled in this dispute in Act I, but quite whether this justifies having a huge bed taking up the whole of the stage in Act I is debatable. Most of Britten's adaptation actually takes place in the enchanted woods just outside Athens - Lysander and Hermia seeming to wander in there by chance, not so much fleeing the harsh Athenian law - but the idea is successfully developed and adapted to events in the subsequent acts.

Michael Levine's sets seem to take nature into the equation however in the blue/green colouration, the midsummer night mood and the spell it casts connecting the earthly and the spiritual, the human and the fairy. It's an expansive view of the world that is a key element to the original Shakespeare play and it's replicated in Britten's playful and meticulous musical mirroring of each of the various elements where each has their own particular style, sound and instrumentation. Most notably, considering their central position in the work, are the ethereal delicate sounds of the fairy world, with voices that include a countertenor for Oberon (a rarity in 1960 when the work was written) and a boy chorus for the elves.

There is however perhaps too much emphasis on the 'dreamier' side of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Britten's opera to the detriment of the more earthy and comic elements, but Carsen's production manages to redress the balance slightly. Mozart was undoubtedly an important influence on Britten, but although there are musical nods to older styles of music, including Baroque opera references in the third Act Pyramus and Thisbe drama, there are no obvious direct references to Mozart in the score. It's hard however not to imagine that The Magic Flute was very much in the composer's mind when it comes to bringing together diverse characters and musical styles and creating order out of the chaos in a celebration of love and harmonious accord.

It's interesting that Carsen's later take on Die Zauberflöte in a graveyard would indeed emphasise the harmony of all things more than the traditional divisions in Mozart's work, and to some extent that balance and Mozartian influence is evident in Carsen's much earlier production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In her blue attire, Titania is a Queen of the Night figure, while the green Oberon is a more earthly Sarastro figure (albeit at the other extreme end of the male voice). Their personal dispute, like the dispute between the opposing forces of Die Zauberflöte, is what causes discord in love among the various couples, and it's only by acceptance of the opposing sides of human rationality and spirituality in Carsen's interpretation of the Magic Flute (rather than one side defeating the other) that reconciliation to the wholeness of human brotherhood is possible.

This would coincide very well with Shakespeare's view in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which sees that inclusive union primarily brought together through Lysander and Hermia, the Tamino and Pamina of the work. You could also see parallels between the three boys of Die Zauberflote and the boy elf chorus of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bottom could be seen as a kind of Monostatos, and his getting into bed with the Queen of the Night is a catalyst, a monstrous alliance that does finally bring the opposing forces into a confrontation that requires a resolution. It's by no means a perfect fit, but there is much to be gained from comparing how Mozart deals with such questions and how Britten uses similar techniques to bring out similar sentiments in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What Britten's opera lacks that Shakespeare's play relies on heavily (and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte), is the comedy to emphasise the earthy human spirit. Puck - the Papageno figure of the opera - is there to be used as a necessary force of chaos. Carsen and some good comic acting from Miltos Yerolemou, occasionally breaking the fourth wall, help bring that out a little more. Bottom is another vital part of this side of the work and it's scored beautifully for the lyrical bass-baritone voice by Britten. Played here by Brindley Sherratt, and sung wonderfully too, it still needs some good direction to bring out the comedic side of his bluster, and that's all there in the Aix production. A great donkey mask helps too and you couldn't ask for more than the well-designed one here that doesn't get in the way of the performer singing.

While comedy is an important part of A Midsummer Night's Dream, what is really important is that all of its diverse tones and moods come together to create a kind of wholeness that has a magic enchantment of its own. As numerous references in the play allude to, and they are there in Britten's version too, the whole play itself can be seen as something of a dream. Carsen's production in the courtyard of the Théâtre de l’Archevêché in Aix-en-Provence has all the scale and the style to make it work. The green/blue/white colour scheme, how it ties in with the music and instrumentation, the beds from one to six to the levitating three in the final act, all serve to create build up a sense of an enchanted world where love reigns as the mysterious force that binds us all together.

Links: Culturebox, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

English National Opera, London

Paul Daniel, Mike Figgis, Claire Rutter, Michael Fabiano, Elizabeth DeShong, Alastair Miles 

The Coliseum, London - February 18th, 2011

Even without reading the programme notes for Mike Figgis’ production of Lucrezia Borgia for the English National Opera, it’s clear from very early on that the medium isn't an environment that the film director feels entirely comfortable with. Even before the opera proper starts, some flashback scenes written and filmed in Rome by Figgis as a background to what takes place in the opera, are projected onto a white screen hanging over the stage, making it clear that he has approached the opera in much the same way that he would make a film.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – opera is open to incorporating many disciplines and giving them varying weight, as well as being open to the kind of reinvention that new technology and modern ideas can bring to it – and there has accordingly been a healthy cross-over of film directors between the cinema and opera. While the short films that accompany the opera then are not at all needed, they are nevertheless a valid response to what the director sees as a need to give psychological, real-world depth to a character who is larger than life and, in Donizetti’s opera, played larger than life. There are, one could say, inconsistencies in the characterisation and gaps in credibility that arise out of its novelistic source in the work of Victor Hugo and its attempts to provide redemption for a complex and really quite notorious historical figure whose vile nature and her murderous inclinations towards anyone who criticises her family name is scarcely tempered by her love for her lost son, Gennaro.

In this case however, the impression is given that not only does Figgis not know his audience – an opera audience does not need the same kind of literal, realist approach as cinema, with the psychological background of the characters laid-out in this way – but it seems that he doesn’t understand opera, and the fact that, in a strong well-written opera (and Lucrezia Borgia certainly falls into that category), all the explanations that are needed, all the expressions of personality and the motivational factors – the guilt and the passion that lies at the heart of the characters – are all contained within the music and within the singing itself, even more so than in the narrative of the libretto, which can otherwise seem contrived and scarcely credible.

This failure to understand and get to grips with the medium he is working in or the audience he is working for, results in a rather over-literal, static and reductive approach for a director who can otherwise be quite avant-garde and experimental when it comes to filmmaking (Timecode, Hotel, COMA). A measure of his mistrust of opera, his audience and his own reaction towards it is in his choice to play Orsini (a female playing the role of a male), as a female, as if an opera audience couldn’t possibly grasp this convention that is so far removed from the rather more literal approach of cinematic realism. On his approach to the actual staging, there is also some merit to reducing the amount of clutter and glitz that usually accompanies a period, bel canto opera, and just letting the music and singing stand on its own. For the most part, the performances are certainly up to that task, particularly from Claire Rutter in the role of Lucrezia, but there is also a strong performance (particularly in the brindisi scene) from Elizabeth DeShong as Orsini, and the bond of love and friendship that lies between them actually does take on an interesting dimension and create other resonances with Orsini played as a female.

There is however an additional constraint that Figgis finds himself struggling with, and that is the policy of the English National Opera to perform opera in English wherever possible, regardless of the suitability of the opera. Admittedly, some opera can work surprisingly well in English – Wagner’s Parsifal, seen at the same opera house the following night – worked no less effectively in English than it does in German, but bel canto opera, for me at least, is entirely associated with the qualities and sounds of the Italian language. Conductor Paul Daniel worked on the translation himself, and really, he failed to do justice to the work, with some of the choices made provoking chuckles from the audience at inappropriate points, not at all helping to establish the desired tone, and making Figgis’ attempt at psychological depth and realism all the more difficult. Significantly, the short film segments made by Figgis himself were in Italian with English subtitles.

The reduction of the staging and the simplification of movements does have some impact then in reducing the over-the-top propensities of the opera that Figgis evidently feels need to be constrained, and while it restricts the dynamic and results in what is not the most eye-catching of productions, it does at least focus the attention on the singing. One gets the impression however that the reduction of the staging into smaller areas is an attempt by Figgis to scale down the canvas, as per the framing in his film work, and break it down into discreet, static, sections that can be brought together when reworked for the cinema or television screen. As such, it would seem that Mike Figgis has been brought in more with the first ever 3-D Live opera broadcast in mind (tomorrow 23rd February 2011 for Sky Arts 2 HD and for cinema). Here one can imagine the director being more at home, progressively experimenting in a filmed medium, using simultaneous action and multiple angles. As such however, unfair though it might be for the theatrical audience, his stage production of Lucrezia Borgia feels like an unfinished product that will only come to fruition when it is brought to the screen.