What: Madama Butterfly
Who: Opera Hamilton
Where: Hamilton Place
When: Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3 at 8 p.m.
Cost: $35, $55, $75, $95
Call: 905-527-7627 ext. 221
Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the pillars in the operatic repertoire.
Its plot, based on a story by John Luther Long and a play by David Belasco, is a tearjerker. Back in 1900 in Nagasaki, Japan, an American naval Lieutenant named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton contracts to marry a 15 year old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly. Things turn sour for Butterfly when her family disowns her for renouncing their ancestral religion, and her “husband” leaves her land. Three years later, he returns, but with his new American wife to fetch the son born to Butterfly. Anguished, she commits hari-kari.
Madama Butterfly’s première in Milan in 1904 was a flop, the opera roundly booed by a claque. After several revisions, and a metamorphosis from a pointed social and moral message to a sentimental melodrama, Puccini came up with a winning version for Paris in 1906. Ever since, Madama Butterfly has enjoyed a prolonged life cycle, migrating across the globe, and delighting audiences in the process.
Butterfly’s illustrious flight has taken it to Hamilton Place three times in the past quarter century or so, Opera Hamilton staging it in September 1982, May 1993, and October 2000. Last night, an all ages crowd gathered in Hamilton Place to catch Butterfly, or rather OH’s preview performance thereof.
OH’s Butterfly was sung by Chinese soprano Ailan Zhu. While no one will mistake Zhu for a teen, she nonetheless captured the divisions of her character. Zhu scored big with her stylized hand gestures, and her Oriental bearing, something which Western sopranos in the role rarely capture. She tastefully delivered Butterfly’s aria, Un bel di, earning warm applause from the audience.
Gordon Gietz downplayed the callousness of Pinkerton in favour of respectability. It worked in his favour, making his aria, Addio fiorito asil, all the less maudlin.
Lauren Segal was a honey toned Suzuki, a servant in the home leased by Pinkerton.
As Sharpless, Gaétan Laperrière was a stentorian voiced American consul.
Under Graham Cozzubbo’s direction, Gerald Isaac’s Goro didn’t tiptoe about, nor did he bow profusely as the descending leaps in Puccini’s music so clearly suggest.
Sean Watson was a suitably blustery Bonze, Butterfly’s Buddhist priest uncle.
The OH chorus was alert throughout.
Locals figured in this production as well. Alessandra Crisante-Crespo, the 5 ½ year old Hamiltonian playing the mute role of Butterfly’s 3 year old son, was a delightful little soul, but ought to have worn a blonde wig to match the “golden curls” of which Butterfly sings. As Kate Pinkerton, Sarah Valentim made the most of her tiny role.
Wally Coberg’s set, originally for Virginia Opera, was a simple one: a wooden, Japanese home with sliding shoji, flanked by a slightly raised pathway, all framed by foliage and blossoms. In Act 2, the shoji opened to aptly show Butterfly’s destituteness. Stephen Ross’s lighting effectively defined both time and mood.
Cozzubbo’s decision to dispense with the curtain and intermission between the scenes of Act 2 made for dramatic coherence, and a shorter evening.
Daniel Lipton led the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra with deft assurance, never covering the sung text.
Emotional, but never thin-blooded, this Butterfly was a moving experience. Catch Butterfly this Thursday and Friday in Hamilton Place.
