chickenfeet

Today's Met broadcast was that old warhorse Madama Butterfly in Anthony Minghella's production. I loved the production. It uses very spare sets and techniques for Cantonese opera including puppets manipulated by cowled actors. It was beautiful and the puppet who played Cio Cio San's son was far more affecting than a child actor could have been. Loved it.

The singing was generally pretty high class though I have reservations about Patricia Racette's Butterfly. The supporting cast was uniformly excellent. Maria Zifchak was brilliant as Suzuki and Dwayne Croft was a splendid Sharpless(!). Both of them acted and sang beautifully. If there were issues it was with the principals. Marcello Giordano as Pinkerton had a thankless task. Pinkerton is a crap part. He's a cad and a bounder who goes all remorseful at the end. It's like having Don Giovanni shorn of the bits that make him interesting! Giordano belted the part out very well and probably did about as much with it as one reasonably can. Good for him.

In the end though this opera really does ride on Cio Cio San. I found Patricia Racette's first act portrayal of the naive fifteen tear old Butterfly unconvincing. This may be a generic problem with the role. It's a pig to sing and only a singer of some maturity can do it. That said Racette sounded way too mature and I thought her vibrato was excessive. At the first interval I was not overly impressed. Acts 2 and 3 were dramatically better (pun intended). She sang beautifully and seemed much more comfortable conveying the hope and despair of the slightly older Cio Cio San (she ages three years during the first intermission). The last two acts were riveting and, true to the cliche, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.