‘Madama Butterfly’ Review: Breathtaking New Heights
Washington National Opera soars with a stirring Madama Butterfly that brings Puccini’s tragedy to life at DAR Constitution Hall.
Once in a great while, there comes a production so confidently conceived and delivered, it rises like a celestial body into its own space and time. The newly-independent WNO’s Madama Butterfly, staged in DAR’s Constitution Hall, may not have opera house acoustics (the singers need to be miked), the orchestra may sit at the back of the stage, and there may be no scope for traditional sets, but it matters not a jot. This production of Butterfly is so transcendent, it could be performed in a hut with a mud floor and it would still blow your socks fully and completely off.
Artistic director Francesca Zambello and the entire WNO team have worked miracles to move on from a decades-long partnership with the Kennedy Center — and they are, no doubt, still building the plane as they fly it. But they have come out swinging in the best possible artistic way. And, if anything, director E. Loren Meeker has embraced the new logistics of DAR as inspiration for her singular, beautifully orchestrated vision. It is pared to the bone, but it’s in this precision that the production so searingly delivers on Puccini’s tragic tale of an all-consuming, fatally betrayed love.
Even within its limits, there is complete and utter grace in how Meeker uses this space. Entering from Japanese screens behind the orchestra the singers take a curving path down to a platform projecting into the audience, with seating on three sides (where even the nosebleeds have a great view). A rare experience for opera, this creates an exciting immediacy, and the dramatic energy powers out like a fire hose.
Still, no matter how wondrous the concept, at the core of any Butterfly is its soprano. Karah Son is, quite simply, astounding. She has sung this incredibly challenging role many times, and the confidence shows in a gorgeous, soaring tone that will take you to the cold, cold stars and back again, all with stellar control.
It comes as no surprise that Son was mentored by the magnificent Mirella Freni (whose Butterfly is the all-time favorite of many), and there are echoes here of her phenomenal phrasing even as Son makes it her own.
Just as importantly, this is a wonderfully understated performance: Son never defaults to girlish caricature. This Cio-Cio-San feels as if she is authentically navigating events she could never have imagined.
As the American naval lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, who has no intention of honoring his marriage to the young Cio-Cio-San, Matthew White is convincing in his fair-weather ardency and eventual remorse, cutting the almost-arrogant, almost-genuine figure of a young man who has no idea what he is toying with. White has an attractively keen, expressive tenor and he drives the emotional intensity with some exciting high notes.
Other standouts here are a truly superb Will Liverman as Sharpless, the American consul who warns Pinkerton to take the marriage seriously. Liverman has a beautifully rich baritone which moves with ominous, velvet precision. He is a superb actor and his investment lifts the urgency and authenticity of the entire drama.
The same must be said for Michelle Mariposa as Cio-Cio-San’s maid Suzuki, who poignantly presages the tragedy with her caring and anxious demeanor and delivers a stunningly rich mezzo-soprano. These are two tremendous performances, but even the smaller roles here are powerful: as Goro the matchmaker, Rodell Rosel is cynical, never cliched, while Atticus Rego as the angry priest Bonze and Chandler Benn as spurned suitor Prince Yamadori each sing with satisfying clarity and sonorous urgency.
There is energy and charisma in every member of the cast and true synergy with conductor Erina Yashima as she draws a luminous rendering from the WNO orchestra — an alchemy that is both fascinating to watch and yet never obtrusive.
In another of her inspired moves, Meeker complements the intensity of the unfolding drama with a feather-light flock of WNO dancers who come and go as symbols of passing time and cathartic embodiments of emotion. Choreographer Kanji Segawa’s movements are sometimes fluid, sometimes febrile, and often suggest Japanese motifs with a touching delicacy.
If there is anything that doesn’t quite work, it’s the expansive projections above the orchestra evoking watercolor washes of distant Japanese mountains and skyscapes. These are rather palely present (at least until the climax) and feel like a missed opportunity compared to WNO’s 2003 Die Walküre, where this same backdrop came to life with lush cinematic imagery.
Of course, anyone paying attention to the late 19th-century storyline will be troubled by the premise of a 15-year-old marrying an adult male via a Japanese contract he quickly abandons, only to return years later to land a more devastating blow. But as disturbing as the plot is, Madama Butterfly endures because, with this vehicle, Puccini is giving universal truths: that one can love so completely as to lose oneself, that one can love a child more than life, and that music played and sung by other humans can bring us to a profound, earth-shattering place in heart and mind. Recognizing and grieving the historical mistreatment of girls and women and the ongoing global problem of child marriage can, and should, live in tandem.
And speaking of the historical, the triumph in mounting this WNO season at all is a testament to our unprecedented times. This magnificent Butterfly, brought to life in a house that is not a home, through the coming together of immense talent and skill, is proof that great art must, and will, prevail.
★★★★★
Madama Butterfly plays through Nov. 20 at DAR Constitution Hall, 1776 D St. NW. Tickets are $57.60 to $329, including fees. Sung in Italian with projected English titles. Visit washnatopera.org.
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