BY WENDY ZHANG
Madama Butterfly
Opera Australia
Sydney Opera House, 29 July
Black and white with dashes of red dominated the stage of Graeme Murphy’s production Madama Butterfly, as it told the ageless story of love – passion, betrayal, and sacrifice. It was a very modern and contemporary-looking production, featuring futuristic costume design, adventurous stage setting, and added scenes presenting the story in a visual and poetic way. Throughout the opera, I was shocked and shaken by the brutal fate of Butterfly, and secretly hoped that it would end in some other way. The production team, musicians and entire cast translated Puccini’s music in a way that resonated with me, and made the story real.
The colour palette of this production was ominous and intriguing. In Asian culture, black and white represent death. However, white is also associated with purity and innocence. Red, on the other hand, can mean death and sacrifice as the colour of blood, but also passionate love as the colour of fire.
When Butterfly first appeared in the marriage scene, the whole stage turned to black and white with dashes of red – the background screens changed to black and white representing the sliding doors in a traditional Japanese house. Butterfly’s friends all dressed in black and white kimono, carrying black and white fans and wore white hair; and Butterfly was in the middle, looking trendy in a black jacket with a red belt (the colour of blood, which was ominous of her future).
Later on that night, Butterfly took off her jacket, and revealed her white wedding dress and cape, suggesting innocence and purity as a bride. The costume and stage design looked striking and futuristic – including representations of the American flags in this colour scheme – portraying the story from a modern and artistic perspective.
One exploitation of the colour palette that made me feel slightly uncomfortable was in the opening scene. Butterfly was wrapped in red bondage tapes, which were spread out like butterfly wings descending from the top of the stage, only for her to fall into the arms of Pinkerton standing underneath. Whilst this added scene served to reinforce the relationship between Butterfly and Pinkerton as submissive/dominant, I felt the display of nudity and use of bondage tapes was over-the-top and not a necessary representation of the character. It emphasised Butterfly’s role as a passive sexual object to be exploited, rather than someone with her own thoughts and feelings – and certainly made the show feel inappropriate to watch for families and children.
As Butterfly discovered that Pinkerton’s ship arrived, she stood waiting for him and couldn’t sleep at night. There she met the butterfly being pinned to a wall but then set free, which led her into a butterfly duet dance. This was an added scene in this production, and the dance was magnificent in every detail – adding an artistic dimension to the story. For me, the butterfly represented the deep desires of Madama Butterfly herself, whilst being constrained and confined in Pinkerton’s house, she still dreamed of being let free and alive again. Deep down, she wanted to be free to do whatever she wanted to do; to achieve her dreams outside the confines of ‘love’.
Throughout the opera, and especially in Butterfly’s music, Puccini employed pentatonic scales and Japanese percussion instruments in the orchestra, to explore the “exotic” sound of Japan (according to the program note). I also heard Japanese folk song Sakura Sakura in Act One. This song uses a lot of pentatonic scales reflective of traditional Japanese tunes, and is widely used internationally as a representation of Japan. It was interesting that Puccini applied this song depicting spring – the season of cherry blossoms as the background music for Butterfly in Act One, but not the following acts.
Both lead singers Mariana Hong and Andeka Gorrotxtagi were in Opera Australia’s Turandot earlier this year, yet they both delivered a stronger performance this time. Gorrotxtagi delivered a convincing Pinkerton with his deep and penetrating voice, even though his character was definitely not the audience’s favourite of the night. Mariana portrayed an innocent, naïve, and hopelessly-in-love Butterfly with a hauntingly beautiful voice. She sang the famous aria Un bel di vedremo with such tenderness and emotions that were persuasive and touching. The screens projected Japanese words from her aria, falling out of the sky as she sang – all words with positive connotations like love, beauty, and wife. It helped deliver the aria in a poetic way – made it into a visual and aural feast for the audience, and made the character Butterfly come alive. As she hit the high note at the end with such power, all the Japanese words came tumbling down to the ground. It was stunning but sad at the same time, that the words tumbling down suggested what Butterfly sang was her own imagination and not the reality.
It was a brilliant production – amazing cast, contemporary costume and stage design, which brought this story and the characters to life, and made me relate to it in a personal way. However, I would love to see more Asian faces featured in this particular opera, and cultural diversity reflected more on the broader contemporary Australian opera scene.
Images supplied. Credit: Prudence Upton.
