Madama Butterfly is an opera that is both lauded for its beauty and storytelling, but also criticized as a product of a 19th century view of Japan.
Calgary Opera’s latest staging of Madama Butterfly seeks to reinterpret the history and the storytelling, without changing what has drawn audiences to the opera, and by doing so has aimed to return agency and understanding to the work for contemporary audiences.
The opera is being directed by acclaimed operatic director Mo Zhou, who wants to deliver a work that addresses some of the more problematic issues with the opera, while also providing more agency to the Madama Butterfly’s female characters.
The opera tells the story of Cio-Cio-San’s marriage to Pinkerton, which exiles her from family and society, followed by her waiting for him to return to Japan, only to find him having married a woman named Kate, and the final sense of betrayal at having waited for her love and her suicide.
Because of those problematic issues with the story, Zhou said that she has long turned down requests to direct the opera.
“As an Asian woman, I had a lot of issues with the portrait of the story, and then how it reinforces a lot of the cultural stereotypes that we are up against. So that’s why, in the past, I was offered Butterfly, and to work on Butterfly many times, and I always turned it down,” she said.
“But naturally, as a director, you always try to solve the puzzle in the back of your mind, thinking, ‘OK, if I were really trying to tell a story, how could I tell the story that would make sense to me.”
That decision by Zhou has led to previous successful stagings, most recently in Vancouver for the Vancouver Opera.
Move from the 19th century to post-WW2 makes Madama Butterfly more relevant
Originally set in late 19th-century Nagasaki, Zhou said that moving Madama Butterfly to the post-WW2 era of 1946 and again in the Korean War period of 1953, set the story against the American occupation of Japan and the transitioning post-war society of Japan.
“It’s all based on historical research. All of our costumes and photos and even wig designs, everything is strictly based on post-WW2 1946 in Nagasaki and then 1953 in Japan. Staging-wise, it tells a story under that lens,” said Zhou.
That Nagasaski was the only port open during the Japanese self-isolationist period meant that it had been the central location for a variety of different stories from authors on the same general topic, she said.
“When I did the Butterfly research, I actually went to Nagasaki for two weeks. That’s one thing I felt was very interesting. It’s no coincidence that all of those Butterfly myths, Madame Chrysanthemum, all of those myths were with a Japanese tea house, and Geisha girl with a foreign-like singer or something,” said Zhou.
“So, in a way, Nagasaki has always been the front line, dealing with the crash as a culture and a dominant Western culture trying to coexist, and even religion coexisting. So that has, I think the road has always been in the original material.”
She said that means the post-war sense of desire to survive as a nation, along with the burst of energy from reconstruction, is not just an imagined fantasy.
That includes a new justification from the setting for Puccini’s music, which plays on the power imbalance between the Japanese people and the American occupation forces, and the desire for Japanese people to play up the nation for those same troops.
“Once you reach act two and three, everything in music becomes poignant and real and sincere. Then everything that we focus on in act two and three is for Cio-Cio-San as a young woman. I feel that in Butterfly so many times we got so fixated on the visual spectacle, we forget she is essentially a lower-class woman struggling. A local, a single mom struggling on the fringe of society that was abandoned by both sides,” said Zhou.
“Why did she feel like fixating on this illusion that she will return, while every single character around her in that two and three knows that she’s not coming back. I talked to my kids, my designers, about it. You know, in a way, it’s like we all think she, in the back of her mind, she knew. But like a lot of immigrants, that’s one thing you can really hold on to. If that one crutch is completely crumbled, how can you continue with your life?”
The modern production has come together with an all-women trio of lighting, costume, and set designers in Marie Yokoyama, Mariko Ohigashi, and Chika Shimizu to return a sense of historical authenticity to the stage.
“We are very lucky and grateful for Calgary Opera, Arizona Opera and Grand Rapids Opera. We’re building a new collection for the set, and costumes and lighting are all brand new. We were lucky to have all first-generation Japanese women design team who are like me. They are Japanese, but they lived and studied and worked in America for 20 years,” said Zhou.
“This is the fifth time I’m doing this concept. Every time, I feel I’m learning something new and I’m refining it. In a way, I feel like it’s reclaiming, as an Asian woman, reclaiming the power narrative. I’m not saying my solution is perfect, but in a way, it opens space and starts a dialogue.”
Madama Butterfly plays at the Southern Jubilee Auditorium on Nov. 1, Nov, 2, and Nov. 7. at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. For more details and tickets see www.calgaryopera.com/madama-butterfly.
