A New Production of MADAMA BUTTERFLY, And the Ugly American Gets Uglier
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. -more-
