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Puccini – Neil Kurtzman
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Puccini 100 Years After
Nov 26, 2024Tap to summarizeSunday was the 100th anniversary of the death of the last great master of Italian opera – Giacomo Puccini. So great is the composer’s hold on opera’s audience that of the seven most performed operas at the Met three are by Verdi, three by Puccini – the remaining one is Carmen. There is nothing I can add to the accolades heaped on the composer. He had almost everything: a unique melodic gift, a sense of the dramatic, and a mastery of stagecraft. The only attribute that separated him from opera’s supreme master, Giuseppe Verdi, was a narrower focus. But what he touched turned to musical gold. He could grasp the emotional core of his listeners with an intensity granted to very few composers The three top Puccini operas mentioned above are La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. A century is a long time to await the arrival of another lyric genius. It may well be that opera’s time as a living art form has permanently passed. All it will take to prove this prophecy of artistic doom wrong is the appearance of a genius. One can always hope for an operatic messiah, but such an appearance is beyond rare. The best way to commemorate Puccini’s death is with some of his music. Butterfly Love Duet Natalya Romaniw and Freddie De TommasoButterfly Humming Chorus
Transcribe →Tosca in HD 2024
Nov 24, 2024Tap to summarizePuccini’s political melodrama was presented at the Met for the 1017th time. This performance was the fourth presentation of the opera on the Met’s HD series. All three leads sang their roles for the first time at the Met in this season’s run. David McVicar’s traditional staging works very well. Presenting a Puccini opera as he intended may be out of vogue, but he knew more about drama and staging than any stage director since David Belasco. The opera works or not depending on the three leads and the conductor. Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen is a vocal phenomenon. She has a voice reminiscent of Birgit Nilsson at the top of its range. But she has the wrong personality and style for Tosca who is definitely not a Nordic type. Nevertheless, the sheer power of her singing compensated for the coolness of her acting. Oddly when she sang pianissimo her voice tended to evaporate She is due to sing Fidelio at the Met later in the season. The role of Leonora is ideal for her talent. The Puccini opera she should be singing is Turandot. The British tenor Freddie De Tommaso made his Met debut as Cavaradoss this season. He started as a baritone and his sturdy tenor still has baritonal overtones. In Act 1 his tone was a little dry, but it loosened as the show progressed. His high notes have ping and he phrases very well. ‘E lucevan le stelle’ was sung with style and pathos – a strong delivery of the uber-famous aria. He sounds ready for the big spinto Verdi roles – which apparently are already in his repertoire. A welcome addition to the Met’s roster. At age 31 the opera world should be his for the next 20 years assuming Fortune stays on his side. His only problem during this show was that standing next to Davidsen, who’s over six feet tall, he looked like Tiny Archibald alongside Wilt Chamberlain. This height disparity required even more suspension of disbelief than is typical of opera which always requires a lot. Quinn Kelsey has been at the Met since 2008. At first, he sang comprimario roles, but rapidly moved to the big baritone parts. He has a large beefy baritone which had just the right combination of menace and smooth vocal line to depict the villainy of one of opera’s most evil characters. He foreswore mustache-twirling for real acting. A superb performance by a baritone who is now at the top of his class. The Met’s orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s direction played beautifully except for a tiny mishap in the horns during Te Deum that ends Act 1. The orchestra is so good that an occasional blip is necessary to remind us its players are human. Nézet-Séguin’s tempi were sometimes a bit on the slow side, but in general, he created excitement at the appropriate times. The supporting players were all outstanding. Kevin Short has been playing small parts at the Met since 1991. As Angelotti, he displayed a booming voice that made me wonder why he hasn’t been given larger roles. Tony Stevenson has sung over 1,000 performances at the Met since 1993. He was smoothly deferential as Scarpia’s chief henchman Spoletta. Patrick Carfizzi, another Met comprimario regular, was both jolly and frightened during his Act 1 appearance as the Sacristan. In summary a fine performance mostly due to the brilliance of Puccini’s score and stage direction. It had exceptional voices marred only by the casting of a great soprano in a role not well suited for her temperament and vocal type. Worth catching the encore presentation next week if you missed today’s telecast. Tosca Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa Tosca……….Lise DavidsenCavaradossi……….Freddie De TommasoScarpia……….Quinn KelseySacristan……….Patrick CarfizziSpoletta……….Tony StevensonAngelotti……….Kevin ShortSciarrone……….Christopher JobShepherd……….Luka ZylikJailerWilliam……….Guanbo Su Conductor……….Yannick Nézet-SéguinProduction……….David McVicarDesigner……….John MacfarlaneLighting Designer……….David FinnMovement Director……….Leah HausmanVideo Director………..Gary Halvorson
Transcribe →Finale 42 – Tosca
Oct 31, 2024Tap to summarizePuccini’s Tosca has been an audience favorite since its premiere in 1900. It has everything one could ask for in an opera: beautiful and dramatically apt music, a gripping story that wastes not a line or note, and one of opera’s most spectacular endings. Tosca, an operatic diva, jumps from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo. At the end of the previous act, she stabbed Scarpia the sadistic chief of police to death as he was about to rape her after which he promised free her lover Mario from execution. He told her that Mario would have to undergo a mock execution before the couple would be allowed to flee Rome. The excerpts below all start just before Mario faces the firing squad which he knows is real, but which the gullible Tosca continues to believe is a sham – she’s an opera singer, not a logician. She tells Mario how to feign his death and is horrified to find him dead after the executioners have left. She then hears Scarpia’s henchmen rushing to the scene. They have found Scarpia’s body and are after Tosca. She rushes to the parapet crying ‘O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!’ (‘O Scarpia, we meet before God!’) and flings herself over the edge. The opera ends with a phrase from the tenor’s aria ‘E lucevan le stelle’ sung shortly after the start of the final act. Some critics have thought this ending inappropriate thinking the music applies to him rather than the leaping soprano. I find it entirely apt as it really depicts the couple’s love. The first example is taken from the definitive recording of the opera. Even though more than 70 years have passed since it was made, none of the many complete recordings of Tosca can touch it. The only opera recording made by the great conductor Victor de Sabata, its trio of star performers set a standard yet to be equaled. Tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano and baritone Tito Gobbi are not heard in this excerpt. Maria Callas was likely the greatest interpreter of Puccini’s doomed diva. She has everything needed for the role. Her singing and dramatic instincts realized every nuance of Puccini’s masterpiece. De Sabata’s conducting is sharp and propulsive. Even the gunshots from the firing squad sound better on this recording than on any of the many that have followed it over the decades. Callas Tosca finale Renata Tebaldi was almost as famous as Callas during their contemporaneous careers. A fault with this and most of the recordings of the final scene is that Toaca’s admonitions to Mario just prior to his execution are recorded at a slightly low volume. The conductor is Alberto Erede. Tebaldi Tosca finale Birgit Nilsson was best known for her Wagner and Strauss roles. But she often sang Italian opera, in addition to Turandot which she sang more frequently than any other role. Her end to Tosca still reverberates. Lorin Maazel is the conductor on this excerpt. Nilsson Tosca finale Mirella Freni was born in Modena the same year (1935) as Luciano Pavarotti. They shared the same wet nurse and were childhood friends. She never sang Tosca onstage – her recording of the complete opera was her only connection to this work. Nicola Rescigno conducts. Freni Tosca finale Katia Riccarelli was one of the leading Italian sopranos of the last quarter of the 20th century. Her recording of Tosca was made under the direction of Herbert von Karajan. Riccarelli Tosca finale Karajan was also the conductor when Leontyne Price recorded the opera. Tosca was a regular part of her repertoire at the Met where she starred for more than 20 years. Leontyne Price Tosca finale Angela Gheorghiu, a Romanian soprano, has had Tosca at the center of her roles. In February 2022, Gheorghiu celebrated her 30th anniversary with the Royal Opera House, reprising Tosca under the direction of Anthony Pappano who is the conductor on this excerpt. Gheorghiu Tosca finale So well constructed and popular is Tosca that Puccini’s leaping lover will continue to dive off the ancient Roman castle for as long as opera endures.
Transcribe →Puccini’s Edgar – Not Even a Cigarillo
Aug 22, 2024Tap to summarizePuccini’s second opera Edgar (accent on the second syllable) was first performed at La Scala in 1889. It was adapted from a verse play by Alfred de Musset. Set in 14th century Flanders it describes the contrast between the saintly and virginal Fidelia and the wildly sensual Tigrana. Not surprisingly Tigrana lights the passion fires of both the tenor (Edgar) and the baritone Frank. By the opera’s end, Fidelia is dead by Tigrana’s hand. Edgar and Frank who have reformed are devastated as are the people of the village in which they live. The story is not the tight well constructed plot that characterizes Puccini’s mature work. It’s a pulp fiction version of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The opera, originally in four acts, was unsuccessful and was revised several times. The last go at it was in 1905 in a three act version. Puccini then gave up on it. He wrote: It (Edgar) was an organism defective from the dramatic point of view. Its success was ephemeral. Although I knew that I wrote some pages which do me credit, that is not enough—as an opera it does not exist. The basis of an opera is the subject and its treatment. In setting the libretto of Edgar I have, with all respect to the memory of my friend Fontana (the librettist), made a blunder. It was more my fault than his. The only place you’re likely to hear a complete performance of the work is at the annual summer Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago. The weakness of the work notwithstanding anything by Puccini is of interest. Though the opera lacks dramatic cohesion it has several lovely tunes. Puccini’s melodic gift was so great that he was incapable of writing anything devoid of melodic interest as the two excerpts below will demonstrate. In Frank’s first act aria ‘Questo amor, vergogna mia‘ he expresses his shame over the passion he has for Tigrana. He rids himself of this guilty love before Edgar manages to purge himself of the same lust. Sensitively sung by Juan Pons it is the only lyrical set piece Puccini ever wrote for a baritone. There are dramatic and comical solos for this vocal type, but none like this one. The prelude to Act 3 contains an amalgam of some of the best tunes in the opera. Edgar is an opera by a genius who has yet to fit all the pieces together in a work for the lyric stage. He got it right with his next Opera Manon Lescaut which marked the start of an operatic career surpassed only by that of Verdi. Nevertheless, If I happened to be near a performance of Edgar that featured first-rate singers, I would go as imperfect as it is, it’s better than anything written in the 21st century.
Transcribe →Le Villi – The Emergence of a Genius
Aug 11, 2024Tap to summarizePuccini’s first work for the stage was Le Villi (best translated as The Fairies). It is based on the same story as Adam’s ballet Giselle. Puccini’s opera, with dancing, takes little more than an hour. It is a slender work with only three characters – Gulielmo the head forester, Anna his daughter, and Roberto her fiance. Originally a one act opera Puccini revised it to two after its premiere in 1884. It was successful enough for Ricordi to publish its score and support Puccini until he had a hit – his third opera Manon Lescaut. The story is pretty straightforward. Roberto and Anna are to be married, but he must leave to collect an inheritance. Anna worries that she’ll never see him again. He reassures her that all will be well. A siren enchants Roberto and he forgets about Anna. She waits through summer and autumn finally dying in winter of a broken heart. The legend of the fairies (Le Villi) is then explained. When a woman dies of a broken heart, the fairies force the heartbreaker to dance until death. Anna’s father holds Roberto responsible for his daughter’s death and asks the Villi to punish Roberto. Abandoned by the siren he bewails his fate and seeks forgiveness which is not granted and he dances himself to death. The story is not one the mature composer would have chosen, but he was only 25 at the time of his first opera’s composition. Verdi was still the dominant force in Italian opera and had yet to compose his final two great operas. When you listen to this first attempt at the most difficult of art forms one is struck by a sound that even if not yet fully developed is original and unlike anything hitherto produced by an Italian composer. Ricordi obviously recognized this nascent talent and accordingly invested in it. I’ll give two examples from the opera as proof of Puccini’s budding genius. To give more would approach playing the entire opera given its brevity. Both are from the second act. The first is the tenor aria Torna ai felici dì (Return to the happy days) in which Roberto mourns the loss of the days of his youth and his beloved Anna. The aria is frequently performed as a recital piece or on recordings. The one linked here is sung by the young Placido Domino who was at the peak of his great powers when the recording was made. The second excerpt is the encounter between Anna’s spirit and Roberto. She tells him of the suffering that she had to endure. Roberto begs for forgiveness and he too feels the pain of Anna burning in his heart. But Roberto is not forgiven and Anna calls upon the Villi, who curse Roberto with cries of “traitor.” Then, the Villi and Anna dance with Roberto until he dies of exhaustion at Anna’s feet. You gotta feel sorry for Roberto. A siren enchanted him. There was no way he could return to Anna at the appointed time. But there’s no forgiveness in this story. The soprano in this recording taken from a staged French production of the opera is Melanie Diener the tenor is Aquiles Machado. Act 2 duet Obviously, this maiden effort is not anywhere near the greatness that awaited Puccini in the 1890s and beyond. But given what he achieved anything by him merits attention. There are several complete recordings of the opera that are easily available. Anyone who appreciates Puccini’s unique talent should give one of them a listen.
Transcribe →Madama Butterfly Partially in HD -2024
May 12, 2024Tap to summarizeNo composer ever wrote a better opera than Puccini’s sad tale of love and abuse set in early 20th century Japan. The late Anthony Minghella’s production has been regularly staged at the Met since it opened the season in 2006. I was at that first performance and liked its colorful and spare staging except for the puppet used to depict Butterfly’s son. It was a bad idea that has worsened over the years. This production of the perennial favorite served as the debut of the celebrated soprano Asmik Grigorian who has sung just about everywhere before her New York appearances as Cio-Cio-San. I’ll begin with the end. Just before the Butterfly’s death scene the screen went dark and the sound departed with it. After a few seconds, the video returned but without the sound. This type of outage has happened with distressing frequency over the years since the start of the HD series. One such event was Werther’s death scene with Jonas Kaufmann as Massenet’s lovesick protagonist. Today’s technical disaster was particularly upsetting as Gregorian’s Butterfly was exceptionally well done. Everything was in place for a cathartic conclusion when the opera morphed into a silent movie. I don’t know how widespread the signal loss was. The emotional core of Puccini’s masterpiece is Act 2. One punch to the emotional gut follows another. From ‘Un bel di’ to Sharpless’s futile attempt to read Pinkerton’s letter to Butterfly’s moment of false triumph when she thinks Pinkerton is coming back to her to the Humming Chorus – inspiration follows inspiration. The measure of a production’s stagings and the soprano’s grasp of her role is the audience’s reaction to Butterfly’s expression of triumph. If they don’t applaud even as the music continues the director and/or the singer has discharged a blank. Today Grigorian belted out the phrase of victory and then collapsed. The audience applauded. Puccini’s theatrical and musical genius is so powerful that an audience is compelled to applaud a powerful rendition of the scene. In more than a score of Butterfly performances I’ve never seen a reaction like that of Grigorian, but it worked and the audience got the message. Grigorian’s voice and persona are unique. Her middle voice is stentorian and is why she can sing demanding roles like Turandot and Salome. Her top is secure, but sometimes thins a bit and doesn’t have the volume of her middle voice. Her acting is on the mark and suggests that she spends a lot of time perfecting her characterization of the person she portrays. Puccini’s orchestration is so evocative and powerful that a conductor of great sensitivity and control is needed behind the baton. Maestra Xian Zhang who made her Met debut with this run of Butterfly led a fine performance from the Met’s matchless orchestra. She deserves more work from the company. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman has a nice sounding voice that he pushes too hard. Also, his basic vocal production is off, and his sound sometimes flutters. I doubt his career will be long if he doesn’t find his vocal equilibrium. Elizabeth DeShong has sung the faithful servant, Suzuki, many times. As usual, her performance was satisfying and emotionally engaged. Baritone Lucas Meachem is a solid performer who brings all the right vocal and acting gear to everything he performs. He typically sings the less demanding baritone leads with the company. Away from it, he sings many of the big baritone parts like the Count in Il Trovatore. He was engaging as a career State Department employee stuck at a dead end post. The remainder of the cast all played their roles with dispatch. The production is well worth attending the rerun next Wednesday. Presumably, the opera’s riveting conclusion will be repaired and intact by then. But there’s no way to avoid the damn puppet. The Met’s program for this performance is below. Madama Butterfly Met Program 2024Download
Transcribe →La Rondine in HD – 2024
Apr 20, 2024Tap to summarizeToday’s HD telecast of Puccini’s afternoon off – La Rondine – was a repeat of the production of 2009 but with a different cast. The composer’s attempt to write an Italian opera vaguely in the style of a Viennese operetta contains a lot of beautiful music in the service of a work that’s not close to the masterpieces of his maturity. He also repeats tunes at a greater than usual frequency – to be sure, they’re good tunes but a little more invention would have made the work stronger. The ’09 telecast was marred by a technical glitch that wiped out the second half of Act 2 and the intermission. Today, management warning that the local bad weather might cause technical problems proved wrong. There was not a hitch in transmission. For La Rondine to work onstage there must be a fine singing actress as Magda – aka The Swallow. Angel Blue managed the first part with fine singing except for an occasional strained note. The acting part was essentially ignored. She has gained so much weight in recent years that just moving around the stage is the best she can do. Verisimilitude is no longer part of her armamentarium, not that verisimilitude is a regular visitor to the operatic stage. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman made his Met debut this year as Ruggero the country bumpkin who falls in love with the wrong woman. He started as a baritone and later transitioned to tenor. He has been singing lyric roles such as Rodolfo in La Bohème, but I think he’s really a spinto and should move to heavier roles which apparently he’s doing. His voice seems not fully formed and sometimes quivers a bit. In what is a lyric part he did a lot of fortissimo singing or yelling. His basic sound when under full control is impressive. A plus, he looked great – tall, dark, and handsome. General manager Peter Gelb announced before the show that Tetelman was affected by seasonal allergies, but would soldier on regardless. I’ve already stated many times that singers should not perform if they can’t give their best and that such announcements begging for pre-performance forgiveness are infra dig. Tenor Bekhzod Davronov gave the best performance of the afternoon as the poet Prunier. He has a fine lyric voice and has been singing leading roles in many houses. He’ll be Alfredo in Santa Fe Opera’s staging of La Traviata this summer. His acting was the best of the cast. The Met should bring him back for bigger roles. Soprano Emily Pogorelc was the maid Yvette. Vocally she was fine. She portrayed the maid having an affair with Prunier as a flibbertigibbet, a persona she carried through to the intermission interview during which she barely allowed Davronov a word regardless of the question asked. He did manage to say hello to his native Uzbekistan. Bass-baritone Alfred Walker was very impressive as Rambaldo the man who was keeping Magda before she ran away with Ruggerro. In this production, he took her back when she decided marriage to a rube was not for her. The Met should give him bigger roles. His sound and stage presence are outstanding. Conductor Speranza Scappucci made her Met debut in this production. The Rome native was the first female conductor at La Scala. She recently has been named the principal guest conductor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She led today’s performance with control and polish. The Met’s art deco sets are still as excellent as 15 years ago. Perhaps even more so given the scenic atrocities that have littered its stage over the last decade and a half. If you are a Puccini fan, and if not you should be, and missed the broadcast catching the repeat next week is worthwhile. The Met’s program for this performance is below the cast as a pdf. La-Rondine-Met-2024-programDownload
Transcribe →Finale 36 – Act II La Rondine
Dec 21, 2022Tap to summarizeLa Rondine (The Swallow) is the 8th of Puccini’s 12 operas. It is the least performed of his mature works. It was commissioned in 1913 by Vienna’s Carltheater. They wanted a lighter and more entertaining opera in the style of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. The result was more in the style of Lehar with touches of La Traviata and another Strauss’s Die Fledermaus mixed in. The opera was not finished until 1916 when Austria and Italy were at war. Therefore, the premiere was given in neutral territory – Monaco at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in March of 1917. Puccini fiddled with the opera never deciding on a definitive version – there are three, two with two different endings. Puccini, even on a day off, was going to compose an opera with a lot of beautiful and interesting music. The ending to the opera’s second act is exceptionally well done. Magda goes to Bullier’s – a Parisian cabaret. Her maid Lisette also shows up. She is convinced by her escort Prunier that Magda is someone else. Ruggero arrives and doesn’t recognize Magda when she sits at his table. She tells him her name is Paulette. Everyone was together in the first act, so either there’s an outbreak of river blindness or Bullier’s is very dimly lit. The two couples sing a toast to love. Rambaldo ( the man who is keeping Magda) also turns up. He has no trouble recognizing her. He asks her to leave, but she want to remain with Ruggero – who has left the table to go to the men’s room and doesn’t hear Rambaldo’s conversation with his new inamorata. They (“Paulette” and Ruggero) have fallen in love (despite the poor visibility) and decide to be together, but Magda is worried about deceiving Ruggero about her past and true identity. The act ends with the dawn as the new couple walks towards what Ruggero believes is eternal bliss. The excerpt below starts just before the great ensemble ‘Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ and continues to the end of the act. The scene is pure Puccini genius – both theatrically and musically. La Rondine Act 2 finale
Transcribe →Madama Butterfly Powerpoint Presentation
Nov 13, 2022Tap to summarizeBelow is a link that will download a PowerPoint presentation I gave before last night’s performances of Madama Butterfly by the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra. To use it download all the files and put them in the same folder. To hear the sound excerpts click on the sound icon on the slides that are associated with music. They are the ones with a speaker icon on them. You may make whatever use of them you wish with attribution of their source. Of course, you must have Powerpoint or its equivalent installed on your computer to run the presentation. The cast is below. Madama Butterfly Powerpoint
Transcribe →Madama Butterfly – Program Notes
Oct 9, 2022Tap to summarizeBelow are the program notes I wrote for the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming performance of Madama Butterfly – Nov 11. The final version of the notes that appears in the program may be an edited version of what’s below. The four principals are: Cio-Cio-San: Yunah LeeSuzuki: Kristen ChoiPinkerton: Bryan HymelSharpless: Zachary Nelson Few works of art have both supreme genius and universal popularity. Giacomo Puccini’s sixth opera, Madama Butterfly, falls into this rarefied group. Its history is complicated. In 1887 Pierre Loti published a semi-autobiographical novel Madame Chrysanthème. American lawyer and writer John Luther Long reworked the tale into a short story. Long’s version was dramatized by the American Producer-Director-Playwright David Belasco as Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan. In 1900 Puccini saw the London production of the play. Though not understanding English, he was so moved by Belasco’s production that he resolved to make the play into his next opera. Puccini, an early auto enthusiast, suffered a serious accident on February 25, 1903. He sustained a bad leg injury which immobilized him for 10 months. When being removed from the scene of the accident he is said to have lamented “My poor Butterfly,” fearing that his injury might prevent him from finishing the opera. Of course, he did finish the opera after a 10 month recuperation from his injury Puccini was convinced that Butterfly was the finest work he had done. An opinion that remained unchanged for the rest of his life. He and his family, confident of success, looked forward to its introductory performance with confidence. On February 17, 1904 the opera premiered at Milan’s La Scala. It was a disaster. Mary Jane Phillips-Matz writes in The Puccini Companion. “The premiere … was greeted by ‘roars, howls, laughter, bellowing, and guffaws.’ Almost none of his music could be heard, and any applause was answered with shouts of protest and jeers. Puccini described the experience as ‘a real lynching.’” The composer withdrew the opera after just one performance. The composer revised the opera, splitting the long second act in two with the Humming Chorus as a bridge between the two acts. This three act version was staged in May of 1904 in Brescia with the renowned Ukrainian soprano Solomiya Krushelnytska in the title role. This time the opera was an unqualified success. Thereafter, it triumphed wherever it was played. It first reached the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1907. Geraldine Ferrar and Enrico Caruso headed the cast. The composer was present and supervised the production. It has remained a staple of the Met’s repertory. As of the present, the company has performed the opera 902 times. The number would be higher had not the Met removed the opera from its repertory in late 1941 because of the war with Japan. It did not return until 1946. A sympathetic Japanese girl and reprehensible American naval officer was felt to be beyond tolerance for the Met’s wartime audience. The version of the opera first performed at the Met was Puccini’s second revision. Subsequently, there were two more revisions. The final one is now called the “Standard Version” and is the one usually performed around the world. Puccini’s opera depicts a sad tale of exploitation, abandonment, and betrayal. Butterfly is only 15 years old in Act 1. She thinks she is entering into a real marriage with the callous and over privileged US naval lieutenant BF Pinkerton. He’s in his early twenties and had no intention of staying with Butterfly after his shore leave is over – 30 days. She is in love; he is just using her. Before “marrying” Pinkerton she tells how her prosperous father committed suicide on the order of the emperor. After Pinkerton does not return to Japan, the impoverished and fatherless Butterfly, who has been rejected by her family for abandoning her religion, resists all attempts to find another match for her; one that would improve her financial condition. She insists she is already married. When Pinkerton does return in Act 3 it’s with his “real” wife Kate. How she managed to cross the Pacific onboard an American man-of-war is never explained, or even why. Neither she nor Pinkerton knows Butterfly has a child, the issue of the 30 day “marriage”, until after they land in Nagasaki. As soon as she becomes aware that Pinkerton is the father of a Japanese-American boy, Kate wants Butterfly to surrender the child so the American couple can raise him in the United States – another act of thoughtless cruelty. Butterfly agrees, but only on condition that Pinkerton see her first. Earlier in Act 3 he had run away unable to face Butterfly. The story Puccini set to music is replete with elements that a modern audience might find distasteful or even repellent. The Orientalism, sexual exploitation of an underage girl, cultural appropriation, and much more – all are swept away by the genius and perfection of his score. The audience does more than suspend disbelief, a fine performance removes every blemish that the story might reveal so melodic, insightful, and dramatically compelling is the music. The opera is sometimes characterized as depicting the clash of two different cultures at the turn of the last century. Puccini studied Japanese songs and incorporated some of them into the score. When Pinkerton describes his history or when America is mentioned, fragments of the Star-Spangled Banner are played. He used Asian signifiers to provide a Japanese atmosphere. These include a gong, bells, cymbals, pizzicato strings, and a Japanese military tremolo. But ultimately the story is about emotions and behaviors common to all people, no matter how different the circumstances. Any attempt to choose the “highlights” of Madama Butterfly would require starting at its first note and ending with its last. The work is so finely wrought that not a single note could be added or removed without degrading the work. Nevertheless, a few moments in the opera are worthy of some extra attention. Butterfly’s entrance comes after considerable discussion of the circumstances leading to the “marriage” between Pinkerton and the American consul Sharpless. The music accompanying her first appearance is the theme of the love duet that ends the first act. This long duet follows her rejection by her family and friends. She converted from Buddhism to Christianity to please Pinkerton. Her uncle the bonze (a Buddhist priest) found out about the conversion and cursed her. She is alone and utterly dependent on Pinkerton who has no intention of staying with her. In this long and extraordinary duet she expresses her love while he burns with desire. In the second act Sharpless visits Butterfly. It’s been three years since Pinkerton left. The consul has a letter from Pinkerton stating that he is coming back to Nagasaki, but not to her. Butterfly is so excited about the contents of this letter that Sharpless can not finish reading it. He stops and calls Pinkerton a devil. Listen carefully to the orchestral accompaniment; it is the music of the intensely moving Humming Chorus that transitions between Acts 2 and 3. Butterfly, her servant Suzuki, and the child wait through the night for him. Butterfly saw his ship arrive in the harbor during the afternoon. But he does not come until later the next day when they have given up their vigil. When Butterfly finally realizes that she has been betrayed and that life is no longer possible for her she prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him. She places a small American flag in his hands and goes behind a screen, killing herself with her father’s seppuku knife. Pinkerton rushes in, but it is too late. The final scene is in C minor. The opera’s last chord would be C, E flat, and G if still in C minor. Puccini, in a stroke of genius, raises the G to A flat thus changing the key to A flat major. The shift from minor to major key instead of brightening the mood creates a sense of unease. The world is out of joint. The listener is devastated. Puccini’s masterpiece ends with a dagger to the heart.
Transcribe →
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