We went to the WA Opera's production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly last night. It probably wasn't the best production I've seen but it was good, with an interpretation that squarely painted Pinkerton as a designing cad and not simply an unthoughtful and insensitive ugly American overseas.
For example as he sang at the beginning with the Consul, about one day having a "real marriage" this production had him show a photo to the consul, as if he was already engaged to Kate even then. I'd not seen that done before.
Madam Butterfly as an opera is for me like The Lord of the Rings as a book. I read LOTR once a year and have done so since high school. I watch Madam Butterfly whenever it is on, wherever I am at the time, or on television if it is on. It has probably the most famous aria "Un bel di vedremo" when Butterfly tells Suzuki of her faith in believing that Pinkerton will return.
She sings of the clarity of her vision and describes exactly what will happen when his ship steams into the harbour, and how he will walk up the hill. It is an aria full of passion and love, and also of utmost, utter, absolute faith in a vision.
I identify with that. When sung with truth the audience sees her vision, believes in her belief, and loves with her love.
Last night there was a spontaneous burst of cheering and applause as she finished, so obviously it is not merely my favourite.
The soprano playing Cio Cio San was a member of the Welsh National Opera and her singing was sublime. Each time she hit her notes the hairs on the back of my neck stood.
The opera itself is the world's greatest tragedy in a musical, to me, love on the one hand, treachery on the other. It evokes all kind of emotions about love and the world, it brings back memories of love and being in love. Last night in the one scene where, after Pinkerton's ship has arrived, Butterfly, her son and Suzuki await his arrival from evening to night (when the boy and Suzuki fall asleep) through to morning, again my emotions were stirred into remembering love's traumas. Butterfly is left stage rear standing motionless as the lights change around her, dimming then rising as morning comes, for 5 or 6 minutes - an eternity when nothing moves on stage - and the chorus hums as the orchestra plays, and in that moment, as always I think of loves past, loves lost, loves regained.
I think of E Annie Proulx, who writes in The Shipping News that:
"Used to say there was four women in every man's heart. The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stout Hearted Woman, The Tall and Quiet Woman."
I'm not sure how it applies to every man, perhaps we can all make it fit. But for me, mum was always The Stout Hearted Woman; I am with Amanda, my Tall and Quiet Woman, and in my past I have known The Maid in the Meadow and The Demon Lover, all making up the four women who have had the greatest, perhaps the only female impact in my life.
In quiet choral music, as Butterfly waited for Pinkerton to come up the hill (which he never does), I think about the heart of the past.
Comments