Schema Goes to the Opera | Madama Butterfly at Schema : more than ethnic

Schema Goes to the Opera | Madama Butterfly

Last night I attended Vancouver Opera's production of Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, and I was awed by the performance. The set design, by Japanese-American sculptor Jun Taneko, was a visually stunning hybrid of 60s mod meets optical illusion, with its array of bold colours and geometric patterns. The quirky elegance of the set made a perfect backdrop to the glorious voices on stage. Japanese soprano Mihoko Kinoshita was heartbreakingly beautiful in the title role, and James Valenti was suave and seductive as Pinkerton, the callous American naval officer who loves and leaves poor Butterfly. It is hard not to get swept away by Puccini's soaring music and the tragic tale of lost love and broken promises, especially when the production value is so high. Despite all this sensory stimulation however, my thoughts began to wander.

Opera is a peculiar art form, not only because everyone sings, but because it unapologetically crosses boundaries in a way no other performing art can. Take Madama Butterfly for example. This opera tells the story of Cio-Cio San, a.k.a. Madama Butterfly, a young geisha who falls in love with an American naval officer. He marries her, but soon takes off back to America where he finds himself a real American wife. Three years later he returns with his wife, and asks Butterfly to give up the blond-haired, blue-eyed child she bore him. Tearfully, Butterfly agrees to give up the boy, but for the sake of her honour she takes her own life. The whole story takes place in Butterfly's house in Nagasaki, there is a mix of Japanese and American characters, but because it is Puccini, everyone sings in Italian. How's that for multiculturalism!

Unlike film and even regular theatre, opera is much more flexible in the casting of roles. The leading lady (or man) can be short or tall, slender or voluptuous, American, Chinese, or Greek, it makes no difference to the audience, as long as she sings the aria they want to hear, and sings it well. In fact, I was quite excited to see this performance, because I had never seen the role of Cio-Cio San performed by a Japanese singer.

Lately there has been a lot of uproar (and rightly so) about the questionable casting choices in the new Prince of Persia movie. While Jake Gyllenhaal may have the blue eyes and the good looks of the video game character on which the movie is based, a Persian prince he most definitely is not.

Prince of Persia?

In a recent article in the Globe and Mail David McGinn recalls some of the highlights, or lowlights rather, of Hollywood's long disturbing history of miscasting "ethnic" roles. For the up close and personal genre of film, the idea of casting a white actor to play a Persian or Arab, or Chinese character (I'm talking to you Rob Schneider), is offensive, especially since such cross-casting is usually played out as a stereotyped bit role.

But somehow opera is able to sneak past this kind of race-based criticism. After all, when Madama Butterfly premiered in 1904, the young geisha girl, and the rest of the cast for that matter, was Italian. Why is it that in opera it doesn't matter that Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian sings the role of a mythological Greek heroine in the German opera Orfeo ed Euridice, or that South Korean coloratura Sumi Jo sings the role of Susanna, the very Italian heroine of Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart (an Austrian)? Surely it isn't just because when you're peering down from a top balcony seat they all look like ants anyway.

Sure, some people might enjoy seeing a Japanese singer portray Madama Butterfly or an Italian singer portray Susanna because somehow it feels more authentic. But when you go to the opera, with apologies to Jun Taneko, you go for the music. When you go to the opera, and you sit there and you close your eyes for a moment and let the music wash over you, it doesn't matter who is singing, or even really what they are saying (apologies to all librettists). The passion of opera is in the music, and that transcends all barriers.

Madama Butterfly runs May 29, June 1, 3, 5, 8, and 10 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

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Comments

That is a very interesting point! I think that you answered your own question: opera is primarily about the music. You can close your eyes and enjoy it, but you can't do the same thing with movies, which are much more visual. A movie is about the story and part of the story is seeing culturally accurate (or at least somewhat accurate) portrayals.

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