Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Butterfly Tears


When I tell non-aficionados that I'm blogging about the Ring Cycle, opera, and the other arts, they rarely say, "Oh, I don't like opera." More often, they reply, "Ooh, opera is so expensive." Well, yes--and no. There are certainly other ways to see a production than paying for an orchestra seat.

You can buy a cheaper seat or a standing-room ticket; in San Francisco, you can even see a simulcast at the ballpark! Sometimes you can catch an HD-filmed production at a movie house that has good sound, like my little neighborhood theater in Larkspur, the Lark. Occasionally, you can watch a filmed production on TV. For instance, if you live in the Bay Area, public television station KQED recently showed several productions from San Francisco Opera, including the Madama Butterfly that my friend Sandy Cutler and I saw in San Francisco in 2007. If you've never seen an opera, this is an excellent way to begin: stretched out, feet propped on the ottoman, instead of sitting upright with a hard-back seat in front of you; table with popcorn and beer (or cheese, fresh sourdough, and wine, or whatever) at hand. Plus, you can stretch when it's not intermission.

Madama Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini, is one of the most engaging and accessible operas, both musically and narratively, you'll ever see. (And it's not Wagner: about three hours long.) Set in imperial Japan, it is the story of a young geisha who falls in love with the callous Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton, whom she weds in a sham ceremony. (She doesn't hear Pinkerton toasting to the "real American wife" he will marry someday.) When he sails back to the States, she is already pregnant, and planning to wait for him until he comes back "un bel di."

She's given up her religion and family for Pinkerton and now lives in poverty with her little son and her servant, Suzuki. Pinkerton never writes until just before he finally shows up again--three years later--bringing with him an American wife. Needless to say, the story does not end well for poor Butterfly.

This season, San Francisco Opera is presenting a new-to-us production with Svetla Vassileva and Daniela Dessi as Cio-Cio-San, or Butterfly. Sandy and I saw Patricia Racette in her "incendiary performance" as Butterfly and Zheng Cao as the faithful Suzuki. They both had me in tears...but then, with this opera, I always weep: It doesn't matter who is singing about that fine day when Pinkerton will return, or picks up her father's dagger at the end.

I'm not the only one like this, either. Dana Gioia, whom I mentioned earlier, once wrote something like, "We go to the opera to cry." At intermission, I handed Sandy a bunch of napkins, saying, "You are going to cry, for sure." Oddly enough, she did not. But for some of us, the never-failing equation is Emotional scene + gorgeous, mournful music = tears.

1 comment:

  1. You know me - all I have to do is think about Madama Butterfly and I cry... nice post and good info!

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