Puccini's Madama Butterfly from The Met - 3.02.14

[Flosshilde]

With Puccini I feel the emotions have been some how manufactured for effect, and I feel this with every one I have seen.

I know what you mean, but I still enjoy it (but not too frequently)

[LeMartinPecheur]

I dont have any difficulty with the " plot" of Madama Butterfly, its the music I dislike.

I contrast Puccini to Verdi, the plot of Il Trovatore is hard to follow, and very hard to take seriously when read as a libretto, but I totally believe in the character of Manrico etc through the music. With Puccini I feel the emotions have been some how manufactured for effect, and I feel this with every one I have seen.

Always prepared to try again I am off to thew Girl of the Golden West on Saturday!

My failing I am sure as Puccini is perhaps the most performed opera composer of all time. Strange as I can listen to Massenet (although in small doses) without the same feeling. Does any one else have this reaction?

kuligin: my reactions are similar (I think!).

I heard a distinguished soprano making an interesting contrast between Puccini and Verdi heroines and operas: with P you have little scope but to follow the score's and libretto's instructions exactly, then *POP* - out comes the work perfectly every time. With Verdi a lot of personal effort is necessary to join up the dots: a personal penetration of the role and the work is necessary, the score doesn't hand it to you on a plate.

I suppose that this analysis doesn't in itself show that V is a greater artist than P - it might sound as if he simply wasn't as painstaking! But this feels to me like the difference between, say, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare: the former creates clever dramatic mechanisms that are bound to make their full effect if properly wound up and set going. But you can't say the same at all about Shakespeare. Thank God!

[doversoul1]

I'm puzzled as to why doversoul should think it "absurdly hotchpotch" - it seems entirel feasible to me, and a situation that might occur now.

I think the background information of the story that is rarely mentioned is that the heroine is a prostitute (not quite the same thing as geisha) specialised in (!) Western men. There were quite a lot of them (the prostitutes) in Nagasaki at the time of this story. Most of them were probably sold into the trade by poor farmers in the province. It was not uncommon for these women to live with American or British officers and merchants as wives, since the Nagasaki magistrate issued a marriage certificate whenever the men requested. The women knew the inevitable and when that happened (i.e. when the man returned to his country), they would usually go back to ‘work’. There would have been absolutely no chance that a young woman, let alone a prostitute, could live in her own house with a maid, refusing to do what she was told. That sort of thing simply did not happen in that particular culture.

There are a whole lot more hotchpotches but I shan’t go into them. I have always wanted to rant about this opera, and now I have, I feel better. Thanks for listening. I’ll go back to Alcina’s enchanted island.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In the Verdi/Puccini debate, I come out firmly in favour of the latter. Verdi is basically a series of arias, and many of his operas can be performed in the manner of a concert, with frequent interruptions for the singers to milk the applause. Puccini's operas are through-composed - a kind of Italian Wagner, with all the intensity of the German composer. He is for me the greatest Italian opera composer.

[amateur51]

I think the background information of the story that is rarely mentioned is that the heroine is a prostitute (not quite the same thing as geisha) specialised in (!) Western men. There were quite a lot of them (the prostitutes) in Nagasaki at the time of this story. Most of them were probably sold into the trade by poor farmers in the province. It was not uncommon for these women to live with American or British officers and merchants as wives, since the Nagasaki magistrate issued a marriage certificate whenever the men requested. The women knew the inevitable and when that happened (i.e. when the man returned to his country), they would usually go back to ‘work’. There would have been absolutely no chance that a young woman, let alone a prostitute, could live in her own house with a maid, refusing to do what she was told. That sort of thing simply did not happen in that particular culture.

There are a whole lot more hotchpotches but I shan’t go into them. I have always wanted to rant about this opera, and now I have, I feel better. Thanks for listening. I’ll go back to Alcina’s enchanted island.

Thanks for these insights dovers, I can see how they make this story even more unlikely but I admit that whenever I see/hear it, I'm in floods well before the end. Most cathartic ... and the melodies are wonderful

[gradus]

If unlikely events become one of the criteria by which opera stories are judged ,,,,,,, oh my gawd! Although I take the point that the story of Butterfly was unlikely to have occurred in real life, that doesn't at all diminish its dramatic force, for me at least.
Its one of those pieces that I disliked when young but have grown to love; too many renditions of One Fine Day and the Humming Chorus out of context cf 100 Best Tunes.

[amateur51]

If unlikely events become one of the criteria by which opera stories are judged ,,,,,,, oh my gawd! Although I take the point that the story of Butterfly was unlikely to have occurred in real life, that doesn't at all diminish its dramatic force, for me at least.
Its one of those pieces that I disliked when young but have grown to love; too many renditions of One Fine Day and the Humming Chorus out of context cf 100 Best Tunes.

You mean like in so much of Radio 3's current Breakfast accessibility output?

[doversoul1]

If unlikely events become one of the criteria by which opera stories are judged ,,,,,,, oh my gawd! Although I take the point that the story of Butterfly was unlikely to have occurred in real life, that doesn't at all diminish its dramatic force, for me at least.
Its one of those pieces that I disliked when young but have grown to love; too many renditions of One Fine Day and the Humming Chorus out of context cf 100 Best Tunes.

My original question was ‘do people take this story seriously?’ I don’t think this is the same as ‘is this a likely story?’

The point I was trying to make was; if a story of a young prostitute waiting faithfully and living in luxury for her man to return were set in an European city in the 19th century, wouldn’t it make you feel like saying 'go and pull the other one'?

I suppose this is a good example of ‘it’s the music that matters’.

[Flosshilde]

a young prostitute waiting faithfully and living in luxury for her man to return were set in an European city in the 19th century, wouldn’t it make you feel like saying 'go and pull the other one'?

The ENO production I saw way back was quite good on that aspect - in the second act the house was looking notably down at heel, & the garden, which was full of flowers in the first act, was dead & barren. It was quite clear that, like Violetta in Traviata, Cio Cio San had used up all her money. It was good at emphasising the 'USA imperialism' aspect of the story too.

& speaking of Violetta, do you feel that that story is equally improbable? Zola's novels suggest not.

[doversoul1]

The ENO production I saw way back was quite good on that aspect - in the second act the house was looking notably down at heel, & the garden, which was full of flowers in the first act, was dead & barren. It was quite clear that, like Violetta in Traviata, Cio Cio San had used up all her money. It was good at emphasising the 'USA imperialism' aspect of the story too.

& speaking of Violetta, do you feel that that story is equally improbable? Zola's novels suggest not.

I thought you might ask that. Violetta’s story maybe improbable but may not be impracticable, if this makes sense although I don’t know the culture of the setting enough to be too sure about it.

The difference is (I think); what Violetta was actually existed (so I understand) as presented in the story, whereas the reality of Cio Cio san was a 15-year old working prostitute, about as privileged as working in a wash house. If Pinkerton had left a house and money, as soon as he left, her employer would have got hold of them.

Incidentally, women like Cio Cio san were employed by officially approved brothels. The government in Japan had always provided places where men could go when they were away from home on duty (I mean in those days). Nagasaki was the only international port then, and as the number of men from over the sea increased, in order to keep local women safe, the government contracted existing brothel business to run the place exclusively for Western men. The men were allowed to keep their chosen women in their residence. All this was done as legitimate business.

Just imagine what great Western literature would not have been written if there had been the same system in Europe!!

[Flosshilde]

Interesting, Doversould, but where did you get the background information from? In my (admittedly not very extensive) research for information aboiut the basis of the story (to answer your original question) I didn't find anything relating specifically to Butterfly's background or status. I wonder, if she was a prostitute before her 'marriage' to Pinkerton, would her family have been as outraged at it as they were?

(& she refers to herself as a former gheisha)

[doversoul1]

Interesting, Doversould, but where did you get the background information from?

I suppose this is an unfair advantage of being native to the setting of the story. The Nagasaki prostitutes are part of social history of Japan. Admittedly, the details of the business were the result of quick Google search.

I think the fundamental difference between La traviata and Madam Butterfly is that the former was originally a novel about French society written by a French author for French readership whereas the latter was an exotic fiction by an American for American audience. Rather like Disney’s Robin Hood?

Madam Butterfly is unquestionably the most well known opera in Japan (at least what the story is about and that one aria). So much so that the title is almost a synonym to opera. It is intriguing and rather amusing to see how others see us, and also the setting of the story and the characters’ names are recognisable yet so divorced from the facts/real things that there is no risk of having to confront any reality or truth. I assume the music appeal to the general taste as well with quite a lot of recognisable tunes incorporated here and there.

[Flosshilde]

Ah, that puts a different perspective on it . I've always felt that Butterfly is one of the more believable plots. I suppose the truth is that any fiction is a distortion of the reality; good fiction uses that distortion to express a larger truth.

[doversoul1]

That is the clever thing about this story/opera; you have no inconvenient factual knowledge against which to check the plot. In order to express the truth by distorting the reality, you need to have the sound knowledge of the reality from which you create the distortion.

Still, one does not want to spend every minute of one’s life searching for truth (well, I don’t). If
the music gives you pleasure, why not?

[Flosshilde]

I suppose that's the problem with any book, or film, or opera, or anything about a place or culture you are familiar with - you can pick out the un-truths, distortions, inconsistencies etc, while being blissfully unaware of them in works about other places.

It always amazed me, watching hollywood films set in London, the convoluted routes people would take to get from A to B to make sure all the well-known landmarks would appear on screen.