Opera of the Week: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Palau de les Arts
OperaLive from Valencia’s iconic Palau de les Arts, the audience favourite Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini returns with soprano Marina Rebeka and tenor Piero Pretti in the leading roles. Director Emilio López’s staging culminates in the bleak landscape of Nagasaki destroyed by the atomic bomb to evoke Puccini’s early outcry against the soul-crushing spirit of colonialism.
Save the date: streamed live from the Sala Principal of Palau de les Arts Valencia on Sunday 19 December 2021.
The Plot: A guileless Japanese girl give s up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour.
Roles sung by Marina Rebeka as Cio-Cio-San, Cristina Faust as Suzuki, Piero Pretti as F B Pinkerton and Àngel Òdena as Sharpless. The opera is conducted by Antonino Fogliani .
This is the first time that the marvellous Marina Rebeka sings the title role. In the interview below she talks about her experience in this role.
And why the hell would a geisha show up in the middle of an atomic bomb blast site?
Makes as much sense as staging Eugene Onegin in Chernobyl.
C’mon stage directors, think through your concepts. It has to make sense, not just be sensational.
Gimel,
Probably the same moronic reason that a lounge singer in Las Vegas in the 1960’s has the power to exile or jail a Nevada nobleman(sic) so he can bed his wife and a Mafia hit man accepts payment in scudi.
Oh SH@#(#)_$#@)_ another one of those old things. I would rather see Eugene Onegin give Tatiana a nice new toy made by Thomas Voldmoort and sons, called a fake Yanni….
Just in case you think I’m only into this modern stuff: I’m not! Stravinsky for example: tells MY FRIEND Antonio Vivaldi that he wrote the same concerto so many times. If Stravinsky is so modern (apparently so modern that the best place to sing his music IS in the bathroom, he says, when people say they don’t) then we still keep waiting for that ONE concerto of his that’s worth repeating as many times as a fraction of Antonio’s Oevre.
Sorry, isn’t this tired old opera full of outdated racist tropes now? Or is it still fashionable, when others have been cancelled – or, at the very least, subjected to disclaimers.
“Wait a minute, it’s stopped raining;
Guys are swimming, guys are sailing,
Playing baseball; gee that’s better,
Mother, Father kindly disregard this letter”.
This actually looks amazing. I can’t watch the live stream on the 19th, but will def purchase a viewing of the recording later.
Her suicide is robbed of significance. Any sane person left with nothing but a weapon and a kimono would kill themselves in what looks to be a post-atomic blast wasteland, in order to avoid a more painful death. And how come she is alone? Did everyone else decamp for greener pastures leaving her behind? Did she refuse to go with them? Daft, either way. You see, dear regietheater directors, when you transplant an old plot to modern times, you ask for the public to apply modern logic to it, and your effort doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Doesn’t even have to be adult scrutiny, any ten years old can demolish it.
Why are we obsessed with introducing a modern theme to much loved classics. I found the second act set devoid of any beauty which rendered the production quite dull, despite excellent performances. The introduction of nuclear destruction in WWII was totally unnecessary and pointless. Why would an American Consul still be there and Pinkerton would not bring his new wife anywhere near!