Madama Butterfly By The Ukrainian National Opera

Last night, at Harrogate’s Royal Hall, there was a standing ovation for the Ukrainian National Opera’s performance of Giacomo Puccini’s, Madama Butterfly. When an enormous Ukrainian flag was displayed onstage, and the cast began singing the State Anthem of Ukraine, every audience member must surely have shared the feeling of being present at a very special, very moving moment.

Puccini’s much-loved operatic work, which premiered in 1903, features a score so overwhelmingly poetic and lyrical, and a plot so devastatingly sad, that it never fails to move audiences. On this occasion, however, the viewer may have been compelled to read added significance into the work, and into certain lines from the libretto, noticing added poignancy in certain musical gestures. Indeed, I found myself thinking about the strength and endurance of the people of Ukraine during one of the opera’s most famous arias, in which the tragic heroine, (‘Butterfly’, or Cio-Cio-San), resolves determinedly to wait for her husband, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, to return:

“I promise you.
Keep your fears;
With unalterable faith I shall wait for him.”

Even as the opera seemed especially poignant in yesterday’s performance, it also felt especially absurd. In the plush comfort of Harrogate’s gilded Royal Hall, to watch and listen to such a beautiful opera, written in Italian, about a doomed romance between an American sailor and a Japanese heroine, sung by a Ukrainian opera-company, during a time of war between Ukraine and Russia, the evening somehow seemed to blend so many incommensurable identities and themes.

Indeed, the opera itself feels like a work transcending any particular time or political setting: it is a story about the pure devotion of Butterfly towards a rather featureless American sailor, and her eventual tragic abandonment. It is a tale which speaks to emotional states that are profound, pure and completely all-encompassing, world-encircling:

“I have come to the portals of love
Where is gathered the happiness
Of all who live and die.”

The setting for Madama Butterfly was richly rendered by Ellen Kent’s team of designers, featuring a curving Japanese-style wooden bridge, and a house with traditional Japanese fusuma (sliding doors). There was a pleasing aperture created between the bridge on the right of the scene and the house on the left, through which the audience could glimpse the sea extending into the distance. The set encouraged the audience to peer towards the horizon, as Butterfly describes herself doing, wating for the “wisp of smoke arising” which would signify the naval vessel carrying Pinkerton.

There were few weak links in an exceptional cast; the mezzo-soprano playing the role of Suzuki was particularly affecting in a performance that brought Puccini’s music richly and excitingly to life. The only truly odd decision was the casting of the son of Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton (notionally less than three years old), who was played by an actor who must have been almost old enough to drive home from the opera. There might also have been some scope for criticism of the choice to drape a large American flag from the walls of Cio-Cio-San’s house in Act Two; it struck me as a fairly crass, over-the-top statement of Butterfly’s devotion to the American Pinkerton, but such considerations didn’t matter one jot when the overall effect of the opera was so expressively realised. And in any case, nothing could have undermined the momentousness of Puccini’s music being performed by this Ukrainian ensemble, and at this time.

The most effective selection made in the production was almost certainly the expressionistic lighting which rained down on the roof of Butterfly’s Japanese dwelling. During the love duet at the end of the first act, the lighting graduated to a deep blue, evoking the falling darkness described in the libretto:

“The night is clear! See,
All things are asleep!”

The blueness of the night-sky light-effect, contrasting with the yellowy hues of Butterfly’s wooden house, conjured up a Ukrainian flag onstage. The lighting gave the impression that the sky above was lit bright blue by the superabundance of flourishing stars described in the libretto; not the bleak black sky of a cold night, rather a colourful star-laden swirl like the star-flashing night of Van Gogh.

"Oh, lovely night! What a lot of stars!
Never have I seen them so beautiful!
Every spark twinkles and shines
With the brilliance of an eye.
Oh! What a lot of eyes fixed and staring,
Looking at us from all sides!
In the sky, along the shore,
Out to sea… the sky is smiling!"

Day	Date	Venue	Opera
Tuesday	14 March 2023	Blackpool Grand Theatre	Madama Butterfly
Thursday	16 March 2023	Bradford - Alhambra Theatre	La Boheme
Friday	17 March 2023	Bradford - Alhambra Theatre	Madama Butterfly
Saturday	18 March 2023	Bradford - Alhambra Theatre	Aida
Saturday	29 April 2023	Sheffield City Hall	Aida