Boundless ‘Butterfly’
Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” has become one of the most popular operas ever.
It has been played in high school gyms, opera houses great and small, seen often on television, films and DVDs, and heard in innumerable recordings.
Puccini would be quite relieved. The first performance of “Butterfly” in the winter of 1904 was a catastrophe. Puccini described audience response as “a veritable lynching” of catcalls, stamping and booing.
History, though, has had a different verdict. The Metropolitan Opera in New York alone has produced the opera no fewer than 500 times. Every major operatic soprano has reveled in its title role.
Coeur d’Alene’s Opera Plus! will produce two performances of “Madama Butterfly” in the original Italian with English supertitles in a Saturday evening performance and a Sunday matinee at Boswell Auditorium on the North Idaho College campus.
The story centers on Cio-Cio San, a 15-year-old Japanese girl captivated with F.B. Pinkerton, an American naval officer. Cio-Cio, known to her friends as “Butterfly,” marries Pinkerton, a cad with a girl in every port. After their honeymoon, he ships out, promising to return “when the robins nest.” Butterfly’s family is outraged; Sharpless, the American counsel, is sympathetic but helpless; Suzuki, Butterfly’s maid, is ever-faithful but firmly realistic. Butterfly has a son she names “Trouble” and confidently awaits Pinkerton’s return. After three years of the robins’ nesting, Pinkerton does return – but with his “real American wife” eager to give little Trouble an American upbringing.
Butterfly has her father’s sword of honor which she uses near the end of the opera’s last act.
The Opera Plus! production of “Madama Butterfly” will be directed by Todd Robinson, who has appeared in past Opera Plus! seasons in productions of “Barber of Seville” and “Marriage of Figaro.”
Christina Major will sing the title role as Butterfly. Major sang as Rosina in the 2005 Opera Plus! production of “The Barber of Seville.” Major is singing this season as the soprano soloist in “Carmina Burana” with the Delaware Symphony. She also performs with the Dallas Symphony Chorus, the Tucson Symphony and the Greenville Symphony.
Blythe Gaissert, mezzo-soprano, as Suzuki, is a native of Texas. In 2006 she was recognized as a finalist in Fort Worth Opera’s McCammon Competition, and was named Singer of the Year in the Shreveport Opera Competition.
Todd Geer makes his Opera Plus! debut as Pinkerton. The tenor is a frequent concert and oratorio singer who performed with the San Francisco Opera and the Tri-Cities Opera.
Baritone Steven Mortier will sing the role of Sharpless. Mortier, a frequent performer in Opera Plus! productions and outreach programs, sang the Count in the 2006 production of “The Marriage of Figaro.” He has performed with the Spokane Symphony, Tacoma Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, and made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1996. Mortier is on the voice faculty at Eastern Washington University.
Brian Frutiger will appear in the role of Goro, the marriage broker, in his debut role with Opera Plus! Frutiger has sung with the San Francisco Opera and sang Goro with the Sarasota Opera. He has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Sacramento Opera, Connecticut Opera and other companies.
David Demand, conductor of the Coeur d’Alene Symphony, will lead the Coeur d’Alene Chamber Orchestra in this production.
Each performance will be preceded by a talk on the opera and its music by local opera expert Fred Glienna an hour before each performance.