Madame Butterfly

Madame Butterfly

So, I knew very little about this opera before I went to see it.  I knew the name, and I had seen the promo materials—and I’ll be honest, I was a little wary of what I was going to see.

I mean—this is an opera, based on a short story written in the 1890s by a white dude, then turned into an opera by another white dude, about a Japanese woman giving up her culture and family to marry an American, who then abandons her for a “real marriage” aka: another American lady.  Madame Butterfly then kills herself when it becomes clear her husband is a terrible human being who really did abandon her.  It’s written by an Italian and is sung in the same language—but that is just Opera.  Weird language choices are par for the course.

For you musical buffs, this is what Miss Saigon was based on.

This could have been awful and racist.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Quite pleasantly surprised.  There was no exoticism of the Japanese Other, this wasn’t painted as “oh those silly Asians, so obsessed with honor”, and the culture shock aspects were handled with a respect that isn’t often seen in modern media—and the culture shock we were supposed to be identifying with wasn’t the American’s culture.  He was the weird one.  Our lovely diva’s culture was the baseline. 

It was a neat trick.  Especially we, the audience, were clearly supposed to be white, European/American I mean, it’s an Italian opera.  The story’s emotional impact was heightened because we could see what Cio Cio san could and would not—that her husband was a racist pedophile, who had married her to get in her pants and was counting on the extremely liberal divorce laws of Meji Era Japan to keep him from any lasting consequences.  The American (Pinkerton) even says that he’s only marrying her temporarily while he’s stationed in Japan till he can go home and marry a “real wife.”  His buddy calls him a pedo piece of shit, but in fancy opera speak.

I’ll add an aside here; this opera belongs in the category of stories that tell us just why we no longer let 15 yr olds decide to marry somebody.    Cio Cio san…well.  She’s 15.  And in love.  And absolutely convinced that her husband is in love with her.

Yeah.  In Opera speak; you know that this is going to end with blood all over the place.  Uh.  Spoiler alert—it does.  She suicides when her dick husband tries to take her kid away and raise it with his new wife.

Like Lucia, this opera is carried on the strength of the Diva—and she was fantastic.  

 I hated Pinkerton, but my heart broke for her because she made me believe that she was in love with the bastard. 

The folks supporting her are also very good, and as usual, the MN opera brings their signature minimalist style to the stage allowing the singers and their superb acting to carry the play.  I laughed at Madame Butterfly’s sass, I wanted to smack Pinkerton and make him make her happy.  I thought her son was adorable, and her support group seemed to be trying very very hard, but they were up against the terrible triple odds of dealing with a lovesick teenager and two patriarchal societies with notions of what a woman is worth.  Go, get tickets.  It’s almost sold out, and for very good reason.  

http://www.mnopera.org/

This is the love duet from the first act.  So pretty, but boo! Hiss! Pinkerton! Hissss!