Yesterday I took my mother to see the Anthony Minghella production of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) from the Met (Metropolitan Opera). If you're not familiar with the Met in HD program, they broadcast an actual live performance from the Met that is received in like 1700 theaters across the world. It's great for someone like me that wants to see a Met production but lives too far away to even hope to go.
Here's an image from inside the theater before the production started:
It's a bit fuzzy - it was a camera in my phone, after all, but this image was on the screen for a time before the event.
At five minutes to go, these type of images were broadcast every minute:
You definitely get a sense of the colorfulness of the costuming from that image.
And once the five minutes were up, you were in the Met. Here are the images:
And then the magic began. Along with the actual production, Renee Fleming interviewed the cast between acts and gave teasers of upcoming productions.
I was mesmerized. As I watched the story unfold I was thankful for the English supertitles in one respect (at least I knew what was being sung) and disappointed in another (who knew the words to the most famous aria from this opera were really mundane and not spectacular or important?).
I had come into this event with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. The original lead, Cristina Gallardo-Domas, was someone I was looking forward to hearing. Last week, however, she dropped out of the production and Patricia Racette took over. Now I don't know Ms. Racette, but I have heard about 20 snippets of singing from An American Tragedy where she starred with Susan Graham and my one true love Nathan Gunn and I couldn't understand most of what she was singing. So I was like, great. I won't enjoy this at all if I can't understand her. Guess what? I was incredibly wrong.
I don't know how she did it, but I believed in her - I believed in her being 15 years old, I believed in her teenage girl games with her with new husband, I believed in her love for her child. She was AWESOME. I had done her a grave disservice thinking that she might not be excellent. She was more than excellent, she was transcendent.
Marcello Giordani, who played Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, sang very well and was good in his part. Knowing what kind of dick-head Pinkerton is, I was already predisposed to not like him, but Giordani played him well enough that I didn't hate him but just considered him as the dog (man) he was. In that time period, in that world, he was able to get his cake and eat it too - to his own shame at the end. Not that I'm gloating about that but BOOYAH, Pinkerton - you SUCK.
The lone baritone in the company was Dwyane Croft, who played the American Consul Sharpless. He was excellent. Of course I envisioned my honey Nathan Gunn in that role, but I honestly think he would have overwhelmed the audience with his presence and Butterfly would not have had as much of an impact. I could be prejudiced, but that is my opinion. Sharpless is important, but not as important as Butterfly.
Maria Zifchak played Suzuki, Butterfly's maid. She was great. Her expressions, her voice - she really sold that role and I never for a moment thought of her as anything else than Suzuki. When Renee Fleming interviewed her before the 2nd part of the Second Act, it was weird. She was very normal and interesting and I'd thought of her as a servant, so to hear how educated and well spoken she was just convinced me even more of her natural acting ability.
The stage was very sparse. A raised hill type affair just about 8 feet into the stage, it was almost a character. From the front, it looked slick, but it could not have been since many characters came from behind the "hill" and walked over to come down on the stage proper. Here's an image I found of the stage:
See what I mean?
Butterfly's house was just a series of plain Japanese panels that moved back and forth and became doors, walls, etc. at the touch of one of the supernumeraries who walked the stage freely in all black, with black veils over their faces. Here's an image I found on the web:
The most interesting, surprising and most human character of all was Sorrow, Butterfly's child. He was portrayed by a puppet and the three men manipulating him were unbelieveable - you thought the child was real. Here's a web photo:
It was just unreal how life-like they made him.
In the end, of course, Butterfly commits suicide and Pinkerton realizes what a dick he is after it's too late. Not that he probably would have changed anything if he had - he wanted some teenage tail and he got it, all at her expense. Men.
Here are the images I took at the end:
The people at the Met rose to their feet to applaud and so did we.
Patricia Racette and Sorrow the puppet
Sorrow
At the end I was overwhelmed. It was so good, so emotional that there were no words. We left for home and really didn't speak for about 15 minutes. Then when we did, it was to just relive those amazing moments and discuss the wonderful music.
A great time and I would definitely recommend this opera production and the fantastic Ms. Racette to anyone.
