CINCINNATI, Ohio — The cast and crew of the recent Cincinnati Opera production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”—mostly Asian and Asian-American performers—reimagined classical opera, turning stereotypes about women on their head. and Japanese culture. They updated it with partially anime-inspired costumes and settings, removed historical inaccuracies from the script, and recast much of the work as video game fantasy.
“It feels a bit like a bigger experiment,” said Matthew Ozawa, the director, whose father is Japanese and his mother is white. “It’s very emotional.”
“Madama Butterfly,” released in 1904 (and set around that time), is about a jilted 15-year-old geisha from Nagasaki who is abandoned by a US Navy lieutenant after impregnating her. The opera has long been criticized for its portrayal of Asian women as exotic and submissive, and for the exaggerated makeup and stereotypical costumes in some productions.
Now, after years of lobbying, many companies are reworking the opera and giving performers of Asian descent a central role in reframing its message and story.
Directors with Asian roots headline four major productions this year in the United States. The San Francisco Opera’s recent version, directed by Amon Miyamoto, explored the suffering and discrimination experienced by a biracial character. The Boston Lyric Opera is setting part of its next production in a 1940s San Francisco Chinatown nightclub.
The Royal Opera House in London also recently updated its production, removing white makeup, wigs and samurai-style hairdos.
In Cincinnati, the opera opens with a lone white man in his early 20s donning a virtual reality headset to enter a fantasy about Japan, assuming the character of American Lieutenant BF Pinkerton.
At certain moments, the characters freeze, such as when Pinkerton says something offensive or the chorus makes stereotypical gestures. “We see these moments that go back to what would be lore and then we erase it,” Ozawa said.
The artists behind the new productions say they want to preserve the spirit of Puccini’s work and make it accessible to a wider audience. While redoing the opera has been liberating for many of them, public reaction has been mixed.
In New Orleans, many people applauded Aria Umezawa’s recent production, saying it was refreshing to see a strong woman at the center of the opera. But some criticized the ending. Instead of committing suicide, the main character throws aside her a dagger he was given, picks up her child in her arms, and storms off the stage.
“The fact that she didn’t die robbed the story of pathos,” wrote an opera attendee in a survey conducted by the New Orleans Opera. “I don’t need an empowered Butterfly.”
Ozawa said that letting down the Japanese community if his production was not a success made him nervous. But on opening night, his fears were put to rest when cheers broke out after the final curtain.
“There may be some discomfort in our story, but change can only happen if there is discomfort,” he said.
JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ. THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6829502, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-08-01 20:30:08
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