Madama Butterfly

St David’s Hall, Cardiff/Touring

5/5

THIS stunning and emotionally charged production of the perennial Giacomo Puccini favourite Madama Butterfly left the audience drained but happy. 

Puccini’s opera tells the story of a beautiful Japanese girl whose family has fallen on hard times and, as a geisha, she is offered to the US naval lieutenant Pinkerton in marriage. Unfortunately, she falls in love with Pinkerton and a heartbreaking drama ensues.

To really engage the audience, opera requires singers who can act and a director and designer to provide a framework for the story. 

That’s certainly the case with director Ellen Kent’s production for Opera and Ballet International, with the wonderful Korean soprano Elena Dee bringing emotional intensity to the pivotal role of Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly). 

It’s a gruelling challenge, with Dee onstage for almost the whole opera, and she meets it with aplomb. Another plus is the not inconsiderable virtue of her being from the Far East, which avoids the cultural jar of a Western singer playing a Japanese woman.

But this is an ensemble piece, with the cast ably supported by the Chisinau National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. 

Baritone Vladimir Dragos as the US Consul Henry Sharpless and tenor Giorgi Meladze as Pinkerton play their parts to perfection, with Dragos bringing a sensitivity to his increasing distaste at the imperialistic antics of the young sailor and the impact he predicts they will have on Butterfly.

The action centres on the house Pinkerton has rented for the tragic couple, excellently realised in Nadejda Shvets’s design, and Butterfly’s doomed wait for her husband to return from his voyages.

Her vigil with her maid Suzuki (Zarui Vardanean) and her child Sorrow (Isabella MaeMoran) — whose existence is unknown to Pinkerton — is intense and underscored by a beautifully rendered offstage Humming Chorus before the denouement when the philandering Pinkerton returns with his US wife. 

Recognising the real intent of his visit — to take away their child — Cio-Cio San kills herself.

When opera is this good it provides a visual, auditory and emotional experience unlike any other. It was a shame the performance was not watched by a full house because this production really deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

Tours until May 2015, details: ellenkent.com