Madama Butterfly - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Madama Butterfly
Text Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica
Tragedia Giapponese
Musical direction
Antonello Manacorda
Staging
Anthony Minghella
Direction and choreography
Carolyn Choa
Stage
Michael Levine
Costumes
Han Feng
Light
Peter Mumford
Puppet design and direction
Blind Summit Theatre Mark Down & Nick Barnes
Cio-Cio-San
Sonya Yoncheva
Suzuki
Isabel Signoret
Kate Pinkerton
Alma Neuhaus
Pinkerton
Charles Castronovo
Sharpless
Boris Pinkhasovich
Goro
Andrea Giovannini
Fürst Yamadori
Hiroshi Amako
Onkel Bonze
Evgeny Solodovnikov
Contents
The term of the lease for the wedding nest in Nagasaki, which the American naval lieutenant Pinkerton has rented, including the geisha, is 999 years, but can be terminated on a monthly basis. Pinkerton is pleased with this flexibility. The American Consul Sharpless, invited as best man, has a finer ear than he does. The voice of the young geisha Cio-Cio-San, called Butterfly, who visited the American consulate the day before, made him sit up and take notice: real love sounds from her. He warns his compatriot against carelessly "eliciting tones of pain from this voice." Because what is irresponsible play for Pinkerton is existential seriousness for Cio-Cio-San. She broke all ties with her family and culture to become Madame F.B. Pinkerton« to dream the American dream. After Pinkerton left her, she defended that dream against reality for three years, trusting American marriage law and the child she gave birth to after Pinkerton's departure: a blond, blue-eyed boy whom she named Dolore ("Pain ") names. Sharpless thinks he's relieving the socially isolated and penniless Cio-Cio-San by persuading Pinkerton, who has since entered "a real marriage to a real American," to adopt the child. Butterfly agrees to give up the last thing she has left if Pinkerton himself picks it up from her. Then she confronts him with her ritual Japanese suicide, which she performs in the presence of her son. Before that, he was blindfolded.
For the musical representation of Japan in conflict with its opening and Westernization forced by the American Navy in 1853, Puccini alienated his musical language by enriching it with material from original or mediated Far Eastern sources: In addition to borrowing from transcriptions of Japanese music by Bruckner's student Rudolf Dittrich, he used melodies from an in music box made in Switzerland for export to China, used a percussion system expanded to include Japanese instruments and was also inspired by a Kabuki theater performance. The latter points to an important aspect of the main character. Because as a geisha, Cio-Cio-San is trained to entertain a man through their conversation no less than through artistic performances such as singing, dancing and pantomime. Again and again it seems questionable whether her self-portrayal can be assessed as authentic or whether she presents her partners - and the audience - rather artistic masquerades. For example, when she – with the most famous aria of the piece “Un bel dì vedremo”, “One day we see” – plays for her confidante Suzuki, using her body and her voice, the longed-for return of her American husband, when she writes a humorous one for the consul improvised dialogue before an American divorce court or brought to mind the degrading fate of a street dancer for her son. The supposed naivety of the title character thus proves to be an abysmal and often broken one. The exoticism in Puccini's »Butterfly« score is more and different than a folkloristic decoration. He stages a critique of colonialism that makes the work fruitful for postcolonial questions and reading.
After the two-act work failed at the premiere in 1904 at the Milan Scala, it conquered the stages of the world in a revised three-act form from Brescia and is still one of Puccini's most-performed operas. In the poetic production with Japanese stylistic elements by Hollywood director Anthony Minghella, who died in 2008 and became known worldwide for his films »The English Patient« and »The Talented Mr. Ripley«, the soprano Asmik Grigorian makes her state opera debut: not as the voice owner, but as a singer as a singing actress who sets standards with the dramatic penetration of each of her roles. The Viennese audience will be able to experience her in what is perhaps the most challenging and dazzling female role of Puccini, both vocally and scenically. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, who is conducting this work in Vienna for the first time, Freddie De Tommaso also makes his house debut as Pinkerton.
Subject to change.
Tragedia Giapponese
Musical direction
Antonello Manacorda
Staging
Anthony Minghella
Direction and choreography
Carolyn Choa
Stage
Michael Levine
Costumes
Han Feng
Light
Peter Mumford
Puppet design and direction
Blind Summit Theatre Mark Down & Nick Barnes
Cio-Cio-San
Sonya Yoncheva
Suzuki
Isabel Signoret
Kate Pinkerton
Alma Neuhaus
Pinkerton
Charles Castronovo
Sharpless
Boris Pinkhasovich
Goro
Andrea Giovannini
Fürst Yamadori
Hiroshi Amako
Onkel Bonze
Evgeny Solodovnikov
Contents
The term of the lease for the wedding nest in Nagasaki, which the American naval lieutenant Pinkerton has rented, including the geisha, is 999 years, but can be terminated on a monthly basis. Pinkerton is pleased with this flexibility. The American Consul Sharpless, invited as best man, has a finer ear than he does. The voice of the young geisha Cio-Cio-San, called Butterfly, who visited the American consulate the day before, made him sit up and take notice: real love sounds from her. He warns his compatriot against carelessly "eliciting tones of pain from this voice." Because what is irresponsible play for Pinkerton is existential seriousness for Cio-Cio-San. She broke all ties with her family and culture to become Madame F.B. Pinkerton« to dream the American dream. After Pinkerton left her, she defended that dream against reality for three years, trusting American marriage law and the child she gave birth to after Pinkerton's departure: a blond, blue-eyed boy whom she named Dolore ("Pain ") names. Sharpless thinks he's relieving the socially isolated and penniless Cio-Cio-San by persuading Pinkerton, who has since entered "a real marriage to a real American," to adopt the child. Butterfly agrees to give up the last thing she has left if Pinkerton himself picks it up from her. Then she confronts him with her ritual Japanese suicide, which she performs in the presence of her son. Before that, he was blindfolded.
For the musical representation of Japan in conflict with its opening and Westernization forced by the American Navy in 1853, Puccini alienated his musical language by enriching it with material from original or mediated Far Eastern sources: In addition to borrowing from transcriptions of Japanese music by Bruckner's student Rudolf Dittrich, he used melodies from an in music box made in Switzerland for export to China, used a percussion system expanded to include Japanese instruments and was also inspired by a Kabuki theater performance. The latter points to an important aspect of the main character. Because as a geisha, Cio-Cio-San is trained to entertain a man through their conversation no less than through artistic performances such as singing, dancing and pantomime. Again and again it seems questionable whether her self-portrayal can be assessed as authentic or whether she presents her partners - and the audience - rather artistic masquerades. For example, when she – with the most famous aria of the piece “Un bel dì vedremo”, “One day we see” – plays for her confidante Suzuki, using her body and her voice, the longed-for return of her American husband, when she writes a humorous one for the consul improvised dialogue before an American divorce court or brought to mind the degrading fate of a street dancer for her son. The supposed naivety of the title character thus proves to be an abysmal and often broken one. The exoticism in Puccini's »Butterfly« score is more and different than a folkloristic decoration. He stages a critique of colonialism that makes the work fruitful for postcolonial questions and reading.
After the two-act work failed at the premiere in 1904 at the Milan Scala, it conquered the stages of the world in a revised three-act form from Brescia and is still one of Puccini's most-performed operas. In the poetic production with Japanese stylistic elements by Hollywood director Anthony Minghella, who died in 2008 and became known worldwide for his films »The English Patient« and »The Talented Mr. Ripley«, the soprano Asmik Grigorian makes her state opera debut: not as the voice owner, but as a singer as a singing actress who sets standards with the dramatic penetration of each of her roles. The Viennese audience will be able to experience her in what is perhaps the most challenging and dazzling female role of Puccini, both vocally and scenically. Under the baton of Philippe Jordan, who is conducting this work in Vienna for the first time, Freddie De Tommaso also makes his house debut as Pinkerton.
Subject to change.
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