Spectacular, with a New Twist: ‘Madama Butterfly’ at Pittsburgh Opera

“Spectacle” is the word. Grand opera at its best is a spectacle—a presentation that floods the concert hall with soaring music, dynamic visual effects, and dazzling stagecraft, all coming together around a heart-rending saga. The current production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Pittsburgh Opera (through March 30) gives you all that, while even adding a modern twist to the underlying story. 

Soprano Karah Son, small in stature but with a powerfully pristine voice, delivers a scorching portrayal of a jilted bride in the title role. (She has sung it in more than 20 stagings of Butterfly internationally). Moreover, Puccini’s score works as well as it ever did throughout. Time and again the orchestra shifts musical gears seamlessly to convey the changing moods and tensions of the tale. 

At some points you hear, briefly, the tinkling echoes of traditional Japanese melodies. But those cheerful notes are swept away by the tragic fate that envelops a young woman who trusted her heart too much. And late in the opera, as she faces mounting evidence that her faithless husband won’t be coming home again, the tone is set by a musical device guaranteed to chill any listener’s spine. Amid the plaintive strains of violins come eerie human voices—the soft and wordless wailing of an offstage chorus, as if faraway sea-sirens are chanting a lost sailor’s doom. 

The Backstory: a Bridge Between Eras and Cultures

Giacomo Puccini composed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. That was a time when high-art operatic conventions were giving way to, or at least being augmented by, new artistic approaches. Madama Butterfly, which premiered in Milan in 1904, bridged the old and new memorably. 

Puccini was inspired to create the opera after seeing a play adapted from the American short story Madame Butterfly. Eventually, working with librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, he arrived at the version that would become a staple of the repertoire worldwide. 

The setting is Nagasaki at the turn of the 20th century. Japan itself has entered a time of transition, opening up to foreign influences. As part of that opening-up, U.S. Navy ships frequent the harbor. And a teenaged Japanese girl, Cio-Cio-San, a.k.a. Butterfly, falls in love with a Yankee lieutenant bearing the ostentatiously American name Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. 

Pinkerton also is smitten, perhaps mainly by lust. He proposes marriage, despite knowing he’ll soon be called away on duty, which will give him an easy exit strategy: ”I can cancel any time,” he sings cockily. (Actually he sings in Italian, but the English translation projected above the stage at Benedum Center renders the wording used here.)

And sure enough, after a stormy wedding ceremony where Cio-Cio-San’s uncle protests the union—and after the young woman and the sailor enjoy a spell of connubial bliss—off sails Pinkerton, vowing to return someday, although someday might be never. The rest of the opera chronicles Cio-Cio-San’s steadfast waiting, accompanied by the child to whom she’s given birth. Her vigil goes cruelly unrewarded when Pinkerton’s ship finally steams into harbor, carrying the blonde woman he’s wedded back home in the States. 

Is the message that American diplomacy can’t be trusted? That sooner or later you will find you’ve been, ahem, screwed? Quite possibly this is one theme that the opera suggests. The contemporary re-staging you’ll see in Pittsburgh seems to bring it home vividly.

A Classic Reimagined

The Madama Butterfly at the Benedum adds a new framing to the story. Before the music begins, the lights go up on a set that’s the interior of a modern-day American condo unit. Pinkerton (tenor Eric Taylor) is no naval officer; he’s just a regular guy puttering around his pad in a t-shirt. But then he dons a VR headset. Now everything is transformed. Out of a decoration on the wall—a huge red disc like the rising sun on a Japanese flag—step two men in starchy white U.S. Navy uniforms. Out of the refrigerator comes a parade of persons in traditional Japanese garb. Thus Pinkerton is drawn into his virtual fantasy world, a world where he can be the bold seafaring dude who gets a lovely Nagasaki lover circa 1900. 

Cue the orchestra. Sliding set-pieces shift to reveal the realm scripted by Puccini and company long ago. Going forward, we’re mainly in Madama Butterfly as the composer envisioned it. However, the journey will be punctuated by further flashes back to the condo, and to Pinkerton as a schlub with a headset. These flashbacks (flash-forwards?) tell us that the man truly loves his fantasy … and perhaps truly loves imaginary Cio-Cio-San more than the real American wife he’s stuck with. 

Potential new interpretations therefore abound. This reviewer found them intriguing. I also found many other aspects of the production to be spot-on.

The Bro and the Consul

Taylor, the tenor playing Pinkerton, is not the sinuously seductive Casanova type who might sometimes be cast in such a role. He’s a big burly fellow, able to come across as sort of an average American bro. To me, the casting fits—I’ve had friends who could be this Pinkerton—and Taylor acts the role perfectly. 

Equally perfect is baritone Nmon Ford as Sharpless, the American consul in Nagasaki. The role is a pivotal one. Consul Sharpless knows from the get-go that Pinkerton is liable to ditch poor Butterfly, so he stridently warns the sailor not to do it, while at the same time he must maintain a diplomatic public stance as the representative of a foreign power. In modern terms, you might say Sharpless is caught in the position of a level-headed insider trying to do damage control while he watches things go awry. Ford plays the part to a T. And his costume is perfect. He’s clad in a flowing long coat dyed shimmering gold, which bespeaks his role as a delegate from the wealthy American empire.  

Am I reading too much into details? I think not. Granted, you may come away with different readings. But regardless of how you slice it, this Madama Butterfly is a unique experience—one that honors the original, and more. 

Closing Credits and Ticket Info

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is presented in a version co-produced by Pittsburgh Opera along with companies in Cincinnati, Detroit, and Salt Lake City. The creative effort was led by Japanese and Japanese-American theater artists, with Matthew Ozawa credited for the original concept. Through March 30 at Benedum Center, 237 7th St., Cultural District. Visit Pittsburgh Opera on the web for tickets and further information.

All cast members play and sing admirably. In silent roles, but also to be commended, are young Risa Kozai and Roy Santarelli, who rotate the part of Cio-Cio-San’s son. The orchestra is conducted by Antony Walker. Melanie Bacaling is associate stage director and revivalist. Sets are designed by dots, a New York-based collective. Lighting is by Kristina Kloss, who worked from original designs by Yuki Nakase Link. The spectacular costumes are by Maiko Matsushima, with wigs and makeup by James Geier, assisted by Candace Leyland and Travis Klinger. The stage manager is Cindy Knight. Madama Butterfly is performed here in two extended acts with an intermission between. 

Photos by David Bachman Photography. 

Mike Vargo, a Pittsburgh-based independent writer, covers theater and other art forms for Entertainment Central.

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