MOT's 'Butterfly' long on polish, short on fireworks
Uh-oh, here comes trouble.
U.S. Navy Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, on the short list of the greatest cads in all of opera, is on the prowl in Nagasaki. He has his mind on a naïve teenage Japanese bride, but when she's out of earshot, he's already proposing a toast to his future second wife back home in America. The unsuspecting geisha is in for a world of hurt.
Yes, Puccini's tragedy "Madame Butterfly" is back at the Detroit Opera House. Get those handkerchiefs ready.
Always bankable at the box office, "Madame Butterfly" shows up on the Michigan Opera Theatre's calendar about once every presidential term. It is operatic comfort food. Puccini's sumptuous score is always ready to tug at the heart, elevate the spirit and remind us why we fell in love with opera in the first place. MOT's current production, which opened Saturday, is its fourth since 1999, and it offers a kind of admirable and polished professionalism — without the visceral excitement and vocal fireworks that will linger in memory.
MOT has come at "Butterfly" from a variety of angles in the past. Stage director Mario Corradi's darkly political production 15 years ago ginned up the Ugly American and Imperialist overtones, while subsequent versions under other creative teams have relied in varying degrees on picture-postcard Japonaiserie.
The latest production, conducted with passion and patience by Stephen Lord and directed with thoughtful efficiency by Bernard Uzan, is another in a line of no-nonsense traditionalist stagings right down to Butterfly's final hara-kiri. It's of a piece with the attractive sets and costumes, which have been borrowed from the Cincinnati Opera and offer sliding doors and screens, meticulously sewn kimonos, lovely flower gardens and weeping trees set against mountains and sky.
One of the dramatic challenges in the opera is that Butterfly can seem awfully dimwitted and naïve and Pinkerton inhumanely callous. So it was rewarding Saturday how Moldavian soprano Inna Los and American tenor Noah Stewart — gifted young singers who physically made for handsome lovers — both pushed back against stereotype: Los was less childlike and Stewart less arrogant than you often see.
Still, "Madame Butterfly" is all about the singing. Los revealed a well-rounded, supple voice with plenty of power when she needed it, but she could also sound a little bland; missing was that final degree of expressive temperament. Stewart's sweet, Italianate voice was loaded with natural charisma yet lacked that extra spark of spinto power and electricity that make you forget, at least for the moment, the sins of his character.
Mezzo soprano Kimberly Sogioka made a good impression in the flower duet as Suzuki, Butterfly's devoted servant, while Michael Mayes brought real depth and conscience to his portrayal of the consul Sharpless. As the marriage broker Goro, Julius Ahn was properly weaselly without being annoying — not as easy as it looks.
Finally, Lord's work in the pit deserves another shout-out. He favored relaxed tempos, conducting with an ear for the long, arching lines of Puccini's phrases. The MOT Orchestra sounded gorgeous under his baton.
Contact Mark Stryker: mstryker@freepress.com or 313-222-6459
Puccini's 'Madame Butterfly
Two Stars (our of four stars)
Presented by Michigan Opera Theatre
7:30 p.m. Wed., Fri.-Sat. and 2:30 p.m. Sun.
Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway. 313-237-7464. www.michiganopera.org
$25-$125
On Friday and Sunday Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi sings the role of Cio-Cio San (Butterfly) and Adam Luther sings the role of Pinkerton.