Arts & Events

Under the reign of Matthew Shilvock as General Director of San Francisco Opera, our local company has shown a disturbing tendency to present off-putting, highly meddlesome productions of opera’s classic repertory. A notable case in point was SF Opera’s multi-year project of mounting all three Mozart and Da Ponte operas in new, woefully misbegotten stagings by Canadian director Michael Cavanaugh. Setting these three great operas in a single American house over a period ranging from just after the American Revolution for his 2019 Le Nozze di Figaro, then setting in the 1930s his 2021 Così fan tutte, and setting In a vague future of American decline and decay his 2022 Don Giovanni, Michael Cavanaugh displayed many misguided, indeed, woefully wrong-headed measures in staging these Mozart and Da Ponte classics. Now San Francisco Opera presents a drastically meddlesome staging by Amon Miyamoto of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the opening night performance of which I attended on Saturday, June 3. 

During the overture to Madama Butterfly, stage director Miyamoto subjects us to a dumbshow of an elderly man in a hospital bed, attended by a doctor and nurse, and accompanied by what seems to be his American wife and his adult son. Program notes tell us this is supposed to be an ageing, seriously ill B.F. Pinkerton, his American wife Kate, and his now adult son, named Trouble, by his Japanese wife, Cio-Cio-San, commonly called Butterfly. Then, to carry through this directorial conceit, Miyamoto has actor John Charles Quimpol as the adult Trouble run around the stage silently witnessing every scene in this opera. From his seemingly anguished comportment, this adult Trouble lives up to his name in spades. He seems troubled indeed! Generally, this silent witness is ignored by all the other cast members, although occasionally Miyamoto even has the adult Trouble interact physically with his 3 year-old self as a child, played by Viva Young Maguire. For the audience, this directorial conceit is simply annoying, often very much annoying! 

Look. I readily acknowledge that Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which the composer based on the play by David Belasco, raises the question of the fate of a bi-racial child, born of a Japanese 15 year-old child-bride and an American sailor, a lieutenant in the American Navy, stationed in Nagasaki. When Lt. Pinkerton marries Butterfly, he does so in callously opportunistic fashion, boasting of having “ a girl in every port,” and looking forward to the day in his future when he’ll marry “a true American wife.” Pinkerton is, indeed, the classic “Ugly American.” We do, in fact, have many such “Ugly Americans.” I recently read in the Lonely Planet Guide to Vietnam of the plight of bi-racial children born to Vietnamese women and American soldiers who abandoned their wives and/or mistresses when the American military pulled out of Vietnam, leaving behind the Vietnamese women and their bi-racial children. Often, the fate of these children was to be abandoned not only by their fathers but also by their mothers, who could not cope with being single-mothers raising a bi-racial child in a country that frowns on such mixed-race children, who often ended up living on the streets and reduced to begging for food. 

To the credit of Puccini and his librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, Pinkerton is shown to be somewhat remorseful of his abandonment of Butterfly after 3 years of marriage in Nagasaki; and when he learns of the existence of his young son, born after his departure, he makes plans to bring the child to America to be lovingly raised by his American wife. This, of course, leads to the ultimate sacrifice of her child by Butterfly and her subsequent ritual suicide, as the opera ends with Pinkerton’s harrowing cries of “Butterfly, Butterfly, Butterfly.” But Amon Miyamoto’s staging of Madama Butterfly doesn’t end there. Instead, he subjects us to yet a final dumbshow with the bedridden elderly Pinkerton tormentedly embracing his now adult bi-racial son. Is this supposed to be “a happy ending”? In any case, it neither works nor sits well with me. 

This overriding imposition of a directorial conceit, as annoying as it is, cannot squelch the brilliant music that Puccini wrote for Madama Butterfly. Moreover, this opening night cast was excellent, with beautifully focused singing by soprano Karah Son in her company debut as Butterfly, stalwart tenor Michael Fabiano as Pinkerton, sonorous baritone Lucas Meachem as Consul Sharpless, and vibrant mezzo-soprano Hyona Kim as Suzuki. In small roles, tenor Julius Ahn was a fine Goro, the greedy matchmaker; bass-baritone Jongwon Han was a dramatically disruptive bonze; baritone Kidon Choi was effective as Butterfly’s disappointed suitor, Prince Yamadori; and soprano Mikayla Sager was effective as Pinkerton’s American wife, Kate. San Francisco Opera’s Music Director Eun Sun Kim led the orchestra in an inspired interpretation of Puccini’s magical score. 

By the way, it is interesting to note that when Puccini attended David Belasco’s play in London, the composer rushed backstage in tears after the performance and begged Belasco to allow him to set his play as an opera, so emotionally moved was Puccini by this drama. To our good fortune, Belasco, who later questioned rhetorically what could he do when entreated by a Puccini in tears, so he graciously gave Puccini permission to write an opera based on his play. Puccini’s emotional involvement in this story shines forth in his wonderful music, that not even a woefully misguided production such as this one by Amon Miyamoto can ever spoil.