Butterfly at the Liceu, the Opera that Never Fails

© Gran Teatre del Liceu

As this year marks the centenary of Giacomo Puccini's death, it is safe to say that his operas are ageing well, based on the box office figures. This is probably due to both musical and dramatic factors. On the one hand, the expressive musical resources employed by the composer, without preparation or preamble, always stepping on the emotional accelerator and seeking impact, place his procedures in a terrain very close to that of mid-20th century film music. In fact, we could say that Puccini, coloured with a few touches of Wagnerian Leitmotiv, is one of the clearest predecessors of the great film music of Hollywood's golden years.

The other element that makes Puccini age well is of a moral and dramatic nature. The composer situates his dramas within a framework of moral codes that generate behaviour which is still current today and we largely share, and this means that his characters touch us very strongly because we feel them close to us.

Among the various famous works by the composer from Lucca, Madama Butterfly is one of the most easily triumphant. Both for the beauty of its music and for the dramatic concentration of its intensely emotional plot, which focuses on a single great character and does not stray into secondary actions, Madama Butterfly is an opera that goes down very well, that has worked effectively on stage for many years, that continues to connect perfectly and intensely with the sensibility of today's audiences and that makes it a real balm for the theatre's finances.

It was often claimed, many years ago, that Puccini was the operatic composer who best captured the ‘complexities of the female soul’ musically. Even on the assumption that this assertion was anything more than a string of vagueness and platitudes, it should probably be revised today. What is absolutely, empirically and statistically true is that all the great Puccinian characters are female, and that Cio-Cio-San is one of the best.

Madama Butterfly - Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona (2024) 

Unlike Tosca, Turandot, let alone Mimì, who are characters who evolve relatively little, and if they do, it is only to make sense of the ending, Cio-Cio-San changes radically as the work progresses.

Whoever plays Cio-Cio San, when approaching the role must bear in mind that at the beginning the voice must have all the lightness, transparency and clarity of youth, almost of adolescence. Cio-Cio San, who informs us that she is already fifteen years old, is presented to us as a young girl with a lot of enthusiasm. Soon, however, all that transparency, naivety and lightness will have to begin to take on body, flesh and warmth because this adolescent must become a passionate woman in the great love duet at the end of the first act. At the beginning of the second act, Butterfly is a mother who, refusing to accept that she has been abandoned and forgotten, defends her child and her status as a wife and fights to remain dignified and firm in an environment that oppresses and degrades her. All this must also appear in the voice, which must become darker and more opaque, more dramatic. But the transformation of the character does not end here, because finally Cio-Cio San, mistress of her destiny, acquires a tragic grandeur, and so the singing must be broad, transcendent and imposing, almost solemn.

It is not easy to give adequate voice to these three women who live inside Cio-Cio-San and who together make up one of the most exhausting roles in the repertoire. Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva rose well to the challenge, but her performance, though correct, was not memorable. In the first act she lacked some light and candour in the singing, in the second, the voice at times sounded tired, with a slow and long vibrato and some dubious notes, in the third she managed to give weight and transcendence to the singing and then reached her best performance.

Pinkerton is a role not often requested by tenors, as regardless of how well they perform it, the prize of the final triumph will always go to her. Moreover, the character does not correspond to that of a hero, so often found in the tenor line, nor even to that of an anti-hero, also quite appealing, but simply to that of a  disgraceful scoundrel who does not realise until the end the high moral standing of the woman he has frivolously chosen as a temporary wife for a few weeks of sex tourism.

Vocally the role is a demanding one, a role for a first tenor, which nevertheless does not present highly demanding challenges. Matthew Polenzani handled it well, sounding seductive in the love duet at the end of the first act and intense, but not spectacular, in the belated repentance of ‘Addio fiorito asil’, his best chance to shine.

Madama Butterfly - Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona (2024) 

Sharpless, the consul, the character who senses the tragedy but cannot save the others from the catastrophe, is a nice, accessible role without major problems for a baritone with a noble, round, broad voice. Lucas Meachem did not take advantage of the good opportunities that the score offered him and his interpretation was correct but of little relevance.

Suzuki, the faithful maid who also senses disaster but cannot prevent it either, was well played by Annalisa Stroppa who displayed quality and concerted ability in ‘the flower duet’.

The rest of the supporting characters were generally performed at a discreet level, and the chorus, which in Madama Butterfly does not have much to do but has one of the ‘pearls’ of the choral operatic repertoire, the beautiful bocca chiusa chorus in the second act, gave a performance below its usual high level.

This musical correctness without excellence also extended to the orchestra and to the musical direction of Paolo Bortolameolli, who had some problems of coordination with the voices. He did not get a sound of great quality from the orchestra, and this Puccini was noisy, soft, blurred and without much character.

The production of this Madama Butterfly was the one co-produced with London's Covent Garden with stage direction by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier: a conventional production, effective and respectful but not very attractive. It is externally grey and austere, with nothing to get in the way of the high drama and the clash of characters. The main problem with this essentialised production, which at least manages to keep the stage from looking like a theme park, is repetition. Premiered in 2003 at Covent Garden, this was the fourth time it had been on stage at the Liceu in the last twenty years, and by now everyone knew it by heart.

However, despite the redundancy of the production and the correct but discreet musical results, the premiere ended with a considerable success because, let's remind ourselves: Butterfly is the opera that never fails.

Xavier Pujol
Barcelona, 9th December 2024

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. Sonya Yoncheva, soprano. Annalisa Stroppaa, mezzosoprano. Montserrat Seró, soprano. Matthew Polenzani, tenor. Lucas Meachem, baritone. Juan Noval-Moro, tenor. Carlos Cosías, tenor. David Lagares, bass-baritone. Orchestra of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Choir of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Paolo Bortolameolli, conductor. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, stage directors. Daisy Evans, restaging. Agostino Cavalca, costumes. Christophe Forey, lighting. Christian Fenouillat, scenography. Co-production by Gran Teatre del Liceu and Royal Opera House Covent Garden (London). Gran Teatre del Liceu.