Madame Butterfly

I met my mom in Jordan Landing last Saturday to see the Met Opera broacast of Madama Butterfly. There is a reason why Puccini is everyone's favorite my friends! I cried through all three acts. The duet at the end of the first act is where the tears began, not only because the music is gorgeous, but the words are beautiful, and then you have the underlying sadness and heartache of having read the synopsis, and knowing that these beautiful words that Pinkerton says are tainted because they are empty.

Pinkerton
Fear not, my dearest, for love does not mean dying,
rather living, And it radiates
happiness celestial.
[drawing close to Butterfly and taking her face in his hands]
I see it shine, as in your eyes, dearest, I'm gazing.

Butterfly
like a fiery eye is flashing. Oh!
Oh! how kindly are the heavens,
Ev'ry star that shines afar!
Is gazing on us,
lighting our future for us...

Butterfly
see the stars!
Ah, lovely night!
Thy perfect calm is breathing love
near and far!

English version by R. H. Elkin.

Beautiful. I've got nothing to say about that, it just makes me want to cry some more. I was very impressed with Cho-Cho San's acting. She was so involved in every emotion. She did an excellent job playing someone that was "half her age." In the way she moved, the way she acted, the way she used the space, you could invision her as a naive fifteen-year old. When she was really distressed, her whole body would shake in a very convincing way. You could tell that her intention was not to make her body shake, but that she was acutally so into character and so into the situation that it just came naturally. Man, I need to take some acting classes again. It's been so long since I've had to really be in character. That's something I want to learn to do well.

The staging was perfect. I liked the simple set, and I loved the use of flowers, particularly of the drappery of rose petals, but also the abundant use of peonies. The costumes were colorful and gorgeous. I loved the use of puppet theater. Although the puppet masters were in black with veils to try and melt away into the stage, I couldn't but help watch them because they were very into chracter as well, even though there were three puppet masters per puppet. They tended to have the emotion that the puppet should have been expressing on their own faces, so they were fun to watch. They made the movements of the puppet very realistic and believable, that the puppet wasn't distracting, but added to the story.

Loved it! Can hardly wait for La Sonambula!