by Sam Juliano
The premiere of one of the world’s most popular operas, Madama Butterfly, was staged at Milan’s La Scala on February 17, 1904. It was an unmitigated diaster, despite the employment of first-rate singers and technical craftsmen. At the opera’s conclusion it was reported there was a stone silence that yielded to cat calls and boos, and even screams of “La Boheme again, we’ve heard that already! Give us something new!” and derision over Cio Cio San’s pregnant appearance after her kimono billowed in front of her. After the fiasco, a furious but undaunted composer Giacomo Puccini -who had barely survived a car accident months before, told friends: “It is I who am right. It is the finest opera I’ve ever written. You must have been dismayed at the vile remarks of an envious press. But never fear! Madama Butterfly is full of life and truth, and soon she will rise from the dead. I say it, and stick to it, with unwavering conviction.” The composer made cuts and divided the second act in two before the “second premiere” three months later proved a sensation. It was later speculated that the initial debacle was orchestrated by jealous rivals who stacked the audience to do some mischief.
It is generally thought that the literary origin of Madama Butterfly dates back to 1887, when a Parisian writer named Pierre Loti published a semi-autobiographical novel titled Madame Chrysantheme, which concerns a temporary union between a French naval officer and the title character, who is a geisha. The work was enormously popular and was made into an equally successful opera by Andre Messager in 1893. Five years later, John Luther Long’s story “Madama Butterfly” appeared in the American Century Magazine. Long’s sister had lived in Nagasaki, and was able to furnish her brother with some anecdotes and authentic details. Hence, Long made some adjustments to Loti’s original story, adding his sister’s tale of an abandoned geisha, thereby transforming the maudlin trappings into a far more emotionally potent story of tragic realism. Pierre was turned into B. F. Pinkerton, a heartless opportunist who sets in motion unconscionable heartbreak when he abandons his unsuspecting geisha lover. Madame Chrysantheme is changed into Cho-Cho-San, an innocent and trusting child-bride who meets her doom after the poisonous one-two-punch of desertion and infidelity are revealed a few years after she gives birth. The work was a worldwide sensation, and after numerous offers Long collaborated with the American playwright David Belasco to create a one-act dramatic adaptation that essentially commences after Act 2 has begun, at the point when Pinkerton has left Japan.
Musical scholars have taken the origins back even further. Two heroines of French romantic opera are Selika from Meyerbeer’s 1865 L’Africaine, and Lakme, the Indian protagonist of an opera by the saame name written by Delibes. Much like the tragic heroine of Puccini’s opera, both of these characters are non-European, and both fall in love with a Caucasian, an act that violates the sacred principles of their people, and underlines the incompatibility of East and West in culture clash mode. It is a generally accepted belief that there were numerous real-life instances where the drama of Madama Butterfly played out right down to the tragic conclusions.
Enter Puccini. Already one of the world’s most adored opera composers, and to that point the architect of La Boheme, Manon Lescaut and Tosca, Puccini was at Covent Garden in London in the summer of 1900 to oversee a production of the latter work. This short stay gave him opportunity to see Belasco’s work, one that is reported to have left Puccini devastated and in tears. Though the composer understood not a word of the English dialogue, the intense and raw drama hit the its mark. Belasco later acknowledged that Puccini begged him for the musical rights, and after a short hiatus a deal was struck, leaving the Italian operatic dynamo to instruct his trusted librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica to fashion the libretto from Belasco’s play, Loti’s novel and the original story.
Puccini was determined to acquaint himself with all aspects of Japanese culture, listening to gramophone records of authentic Japanese music, and in interviewing a Japanese actress to assist in in studying proper Japanese vocal inflections. He furthermore consulted books on Japanese history, customs, architecture and music. His painstaking work and exhaustive writing produced some of his most unforgettable music, comprised of soaring lyricism and melodic felicity that remains to this day as one of the rapturous accomplishments in the operatic repertory. Madama Butterfly does stand apart from Puccini’s other tragedies by way of the dramatic and the musical. Because it portrays death by choice rather than by illness, fate or the hand of others, some regard Butterfly as the most tragic of Puccini’s operas. The inherent helplessness of the Geisha’s character (as opposed to the freedom-of-choice available to the Bohemian Mimi in La Boheme and Floria Tosca in the opera of the same name) makes her demise especially wrenching. She has the options of marrying a Japanese prince or returning to her former profession, but she chooses yet another alternative – self annihilation. This selfless act elevates her to the purest interpretation of a true heroine. Madama Butterfly differs from the others too in that it traces Cio-Cio San from child-bride to her untimely demise. More than any other Puccini work the drama is fueled by psychological concerns, concentrated in the geisha, who is the center of the drama Butterfly has no real antagonists: Pinkerton is no more than a catalyst to set the tragedy in motion, while the other characters are lay figures that serve to intensity the tragic plight of the heroine. The consul and the Suzuki can be perceived as a Greek Chorus. Based on comments Puccini made during the production stage, the Butterfly character affected him deepest of all his creations, thus moving him to dig deepest in her psyche, as she moves toward her destruction.
Opera and film could not be less suited to each other as performing arts. The former is big, bold and grandiose and is dominated by lavish sets and booming arias that are meant to reach the last rows of distant balconies. As a form opera encompasses live theater, set design, costuming, vocal and instrumental music, and the emotions it inspires are often larger than life, or are meant to be. Film by contrast is an intimate medium, with the capacity to observe details, nuances and emotional intimacy. It has always been charged that there can be no successful operatic film when these two artistic properties collide. Yet, as recently as the last few years, Metropolitan Opera HD transmissions from multiplexes worldwide has proven that opera can work in the cinematic (or video) realm, in many instances making the form more accessible to those either unable to attend at the houses or unable to appreciate the experience due to poor seating. The tenets of film, whether shot in a studio or on location yields a difference experience yet one that can still convey the artistic essence of opera. Such is the case with many “opera films” directed by luminaries such as Franco Zeffirelli, Hans Jurgen-Syberberg, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Peter Weigl and Joseph Losey among others, many of which work both as cinema and filmed opera. For many opera aficionados they happily allow for the permanent record of great vocal or instrumental performances, technical craftsmanship and superlative utilization of location or decor, and sometimes an interpretation that enriches the original work, or brings in another level of aesthetic.
Madama Butterfly has been the source of at least eight films during the past century, though most are based on the story rather than the opera. A noted version of the actual opera was filmed in Italy in 1954, but the two best versions to date were produced in 1974 and 1995. The former, made for German television and directed by the esteemed J.P. Ponnelle, is mainly revered for the singing of its two leads – the then youthful ace tenor Placido Domingo as Pinkerton and the great soprano Mirella Freni and Cio-Cio-San. Both singer brought their A game to the production, but for many the film’s dreamy, sometimes blurred imagery detracted from the emotional power of the work that is predicated on realism. The best version on film – the 1995 work directed by the Frenchman Frederic Mitterand, which is the subject of this essay was promoted by Martin Scorsese for Sony Classics, and ran theatrically before being transferred to DVD and a successful afterlife.
Mitterand, who is a nephew of the late French president Francois, was a documentary director who made his feature debut with Madama Butterfly. He audaciously eschewed the safer route of shooting on sound stages to embrace the outdoors and escape the staginess that will inevitably result from claustrophobic confines. Of course the matter of realism is the language of film, and the director makes impressive use of crane and tracking shots and the spinning camera that right from the start serve notice that this Madama Butterfly is cinematically fluid and a far cry from a mere recorded performance.
Cinematographer Philippe Welt has an eye for vibrant color, which is vital for this opera, where Japanese culture is central to the physical design and major themes. The film is resplendent without saturation -there is after all a concerted effort to make the drama urgent – and some of the more ornate sequences like the wedding is as aesthetically beautiful as it is emotionally stirring.
Any production of Butterfly, alas, swims or sinks on the singing of the two leads. The American tenor Richard Troxell is a far cry from Pavarotti or Domingo (and a good many others who possess better voices) yet he sings with passion and conviction, and by way of looks, swagger and youthful fervor he’s a perfect fit for one of the most unlikable characters in all of opera. It is to be noted that Troxell’s Pinkerton is one of the most sympathetic interpretations of this odious character that has ever been given. Troxell’s intense and heartfelt singing in the momentous love duet (“Viena La Sera”) brings human dimension to the character, making the final betrayal all that more shocking and despicable. Troxell similarly delivers the affecting second act aria “Addio fiorito asil” and the patriotic stanzas earlier on in Act I. Ying Huang is a vocally expressive, exotic-looking and vulnerable Cio-Cio-San, and she brings the house down with her aching and anguished rendition of “Un Bel Di Vedremo,” one of the most celebrated soprano arias ever written and a musical centerpiece of Madama Butterfly. Holding up her half of the love duet, she is radiant and sincere, and her voice is particularly rapturous when she sings simultaneously with Troxell, as well it should be. Her projection of nobility and selflessness in her death scene maintains the inherent and wrenching emotional energy of the moment, and she’s radiant in the showcase wedding sequence. Most importantly there’s chemistry between Huang and Troxell, and in this sad tale of deception and unconscionable heartbreak it helps to heighten the emotional impact.
Mitterand wisely plays it straight by casting Ning Liang as Butterfly’s servant Suzuki, who brings an inner rage and empathy to one who must witness the tragic act and following injustice, and she’s a quality singer. Miki Lou Pinard, who plays the young child seems without direction, but this works taking in the context of the situation. As Sharpless -the United States consul who officiates at the wedding – the sturdy-voiced American Richard Cowan warns Pinkerton not to toy with Butterfly’s affections, yet because of class kinship he does nothing to stem his friend’s selfishness. Mitterand has done a great job is bringing a classic to the masses by not compromising on the possibilities of exotic beauty through evocative costumes, stunning scenery and sets (certainly in the traditional school of Franco Zeffirelli) and he stages all the big arias and duets – the beguiling Flower Duet is magnificent- with a painterly eye and the a powerful outdoor audio acoustic in collaboration with James Conlon and the Radio France Orchestra. In summation Mitterand’s version of Madama Butterfly is that extreme rarity, a beautifully acted, beautifully sung, beautifully filmed movie version of an opera. The cast is suited, in age and appearance, to their characters, which is hardly ever the case in stage productions, and the cinematic medium, with swirling cameras and intense close-ups puts an accent on this most wrenching of all operas by the most beloved operatic melody maker of all-time.