Elli Bunton described her set and costume designs for Pacific Opera Victoria’s Madama Butterfly as ”impressionistic,” but it was more than that: impressionism became the overarching concept for the entire production, visually and musically.
Stylistically influenced by shoji screens, rice paper, pink cherry blossoms and clean, unfussy lines, Bunton’s not-at-all naturalistic sets nevertheless suggested a quintessentially timeless Japanese backdrop to Puccini’s poignant drama. The pastel hues, beige, pale green and grey-shifted dramatically under Gerald King’s fluid lighting, while stage director Francois Racine’s Butoh-influenced style of stage movement enhanced the Japanese ambience further.
Even such prepossessing visuals far from upstaged the singing. On Feb. 19, soprano Sally Dibblee, singing her first Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly), was a tour-de-force of vocal control and expressive flexibility. She missed neither musical note nor demure, Japanese shuffle-step in the role’s huge expressive stretch from naive, 15-year-old geisha to adoring mother and grief-stricken, abandoned wife.
Tenor Kurt Lehmann, if a little stolid as Pinkerton, was up to the task vocally. He seemed somewhat emotionally distant from Dibblee, but his character is emotionally remote from hers. It certainly worked onstage: audience empathy was totally with the touchingly loyal Cio-Cio-San, and Pinkerton’s final remorseful blusterings were to no avail whatsoever.
The opera builds its huge head of emotional steam in Act II, beginning with the interaction between the innocently deluded Butterfly and her reality-based maid,Suzuki, beautifully sung and sharply characterized by mezzo Michele Losier. Bruce Kelly used his mellifluous baritone to portray a warm and compassionate American Consul, Sharpless.The smaller roles also were deftly realized.
Giuseppe Pietraroia, conducting the Puccini-sanctioned orchestral reduction by Ettore Panizza, drew a broad swath of tonal hues from orchestra and chorus alike: the shimmering textures of the “Humming Chorus,” for instance, sounded as wispily impressionistic as anything by Debussy, yet remained true to their Puccianian ethos.
-Robert Jordan
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
No incoming links found yet.