Madama Butterfly, Glyndebourne, 19 May 2018

Glyndebourne Opera House

Pinkerton – Joshua Guerrero

Goro – Carlo Bosi

Suzuki – Elizabeth DeShong

Sharpless – Michael Sumuel

Cio-Cio-San – Olga Busuioc

Cousin – Jennifer Witton

Cio-Cio-San’s Mother – Eirlys Myfanwy Davies

Yakuside – Adam Marsden

Aunt – Shuna Scott Sendall

Imperial Commissioner – Michael Mofidian

Official Registrar – Jake Muffett

Bonze – Oleg Budurtaskiy

Prince Yamadori – Simon Mechlinski

Sorrow –Rupert Wade

Kate Pinkerto – Ida Ränzlöv

Annilese Miskimmon (director)

Nicky Shaw (set designs)

Mark Jonathan (lighting)

Kally Lloyd Jones (movement)

Ian William Galloway (video)

Glyndebourne Chorus (chorus master: Nicholas Jenkins)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Omer Weir Wellber (conductor)

‘Picture it,’ as senior Golden Girl, Sophia Petrillo used to say. ‘England, 19 May 2018…’ An audience found itself enthralled by the marriage of an impressive woman to a privileged man, impeccable and dashing in his military uniform, from another nationality and ‘race’. They wished her well in this fairytale, investing their hopes, personal and communal, in the success of their union, even as some of their number risked spoiling the party by exploring a little of the history of this meeting of cultures. All the while, the mediating moneymakers – well, they made money. Would it last? Were some of them/us already gearing up to be thrilled by its potential difficulties, failures, even tragedy? From Windsor Castle, then, to the Sussex Downs did not seem too lengthy a journey – I saw signs at Clapham Junction for the latter, as I found my platform for the latter – especially for a festival opening for which the not-quite-so-great-and-good-as-would-have-resulted-in-an-invitation-to-the-reception were naturally out in force.

Annilese Miskimmon’s production of Madama Butterfly, Glyndebourne’s first, has been seen previously on the 2016 tour, but this was its first appearance at the Festival proper, and my first encounter with it. It would be considered reasonably straightforward for most composers, bar the ‘updating’ – must we continue to use that dated word and idea? – to the 1950s, yet for Puccini, who perhaps suffers more than any other opera composer from a surfeit of reactionary stagings, probably marks quite an important step. It is not Calixto Bieito, nor would one expect it to be. What we see, however, portrays the drama, both a clash of cultures and expectations on anything but a level playing-field and a very personal tragedy, with unfailing intelligence and emotional commitment. I liked it – and the stage performances – very much, and responded pretty much how I ‘should’, whilst being provoked to think rather more than I often have been.

What comes across very strongly from the outset is that, whatever the exalted setting – be it a royal castle or an opera stage – and the undeniable personhood of the sacrificial victim, there is something distressingly typical about the story and the social structures that give rise to it. Cio-Cio-San is placed explicitly in a line of geishas, ‘married’ off to their respective ‘husbands’, educated onsite at the marriage bureau by the slide show, ‘How to be an American wife’, a ready source of income for the grubbily venal Goro. (He returns at the close of the first act to count his money.) A neon-lit HOTEL stands next door, for ease of consummation; or rather, the bureau stands next door to it, for ease of commerce. The overweening arrogance of Pinkerton is his personally and culturally: not just the cigarettes he smokes, but his – in context – shocking act of forcing a horrified Cio-Cio-San to toss her bouquet behind her. She does not understand, nor do the girls behind her, who dart away from it. It is cultural misunderstanding, yes, but from a man and a culture – a gender too – which, holding all the cards, have neither need nor wish to understand. Perhaps he does, a little; he too, after all, is ultimately ordinary, nothing special. (Unlike his ‘bride’, he remains that way, resolutely untransfigured, untransfigurable.) There are a few little signs of such, and, in the duet with which the first act closes, he shows her a degree of kindness, or at least of toxic masculine, Yankee concern. He is, however, a colonial tourist and overlord – and will remain so. So says the score too, of course, as Puccini subjects the Star-Spangled Banner to further exploration than one might innocently expect. In Madam Butterfly, we are all robbed of whatever innocence we may fondly delude ourselves we possessed in the first place.

The second act, tellingly, shows us an American house, set in a Japanese – or, rather stylised, orientalised ‘Japanese’ – landscape. There is no doubting Butterfly’s – sorry, Mme Pinkerton’s – belief and pride in her new situation, whatever the parlous financial situation of which Suzuki informs her. She smokes American cigarettes too now, or claims to; she proudly offers one to Sharpless, and discreetly chokes on hers. Prince Yamadori was surrounded by Americans as well as ‘natives’, when he paid her a visit: he is the compromising member of a colonial elite one would expect. Much is done with light, much is done with designs, costumes included; she is dressed as an American woman too. Until the end, that is, when to die in honour, she dresses, tragically and yet not without her hallmark pride, as the Japanese woman she has, perhaps, always known herself to be. And her son, little Sorrow, plays with a model of an American gunboat, as he waits for his father – and as his mother kills herself. Throughout, the tragedy is intensely personal and intensely imperialist.

In the title role, Olga Busuioc impressed greatly, especially during the second and third acts, when she seemed more at ease in the role. (This was, after all, an opening night.) As Alexandra Wilson writes in her programme note – and this goes for so much Puccini in general: think what we actually see and hear first-hand in La bohème! – ‘one of the particular strokes of brilliance about the opera is the way in which Puccini manages to trace the development of … [her] personality so vividly and perceptively across the span of a comparatively short opera.’ That needs performative brilliance too, which one certainly received later on, the dynamic scale of her vocal contribution not the least of her dramatic tools. Elizabeth DeShong made for a kindly yet – again – proud Suzuki. If I am rehearsing colonialist stereotypes, what else is one to do in such an opera? Perhaps the best we can hope for is to do so with a degree of critical awareness, unless, that is, we are puritanically to consign this and so many other works to the dustbin of history – and then remain with what?

Joshua Guerrero portrayed Pinkerton to a tee: his easy, false charm, his arrogance, and yet, a hint of the ambiguous, albeit quotidian devil to him too. (The pantomime booing he received was, as ever, deeply regrettable. Can we not put a stop to that, right now, please?) Carlo Bosi made us loathe the shallow evil of the aforementioned Foro, whilst Michael Sumuel did an excellent job as the duly compassionate – up to a point: repeat, up to a point – Sharpless. Indeed, every member of the cast impressed, and contributed to a greater whole; I noted, especially, Michael Mofidian’s Imperial Commissioner, Oleg Budartaskiy’s Bonze, and, as much in stage beaing as in voice – for, as one always rediscovers, she has so little to sing – Ida Ränzlöv’s Kate Pinkerton.

The London Philharmonic clearly relished playing Puccini’s score. (Which orchestra would not?) String sheen and more general tonal allure were not purchased at the expense of incisive drama: quite the contrary. I could not help but wish that it had been given its head a little more often by Omer Meir Wellber, but perhaps that was his point. If he did not always communicate the quasi-symphonic form of the musical work as strongly as he might have done, with a consequent lack of dramatic impetus at times. For the most part Wellber showed himself a good accompanist, more often than not alert to the ebb and flow, often a little reticent and sometimes even sluggish. In Puccini, just as in Wagner and Strauss, the relationship between orchestra and singers is not, or should not be, a zero-sum game: attention paid to the one should heighten our attention to the other. More of that will probably come, though, as the run progresses. This remained, by any standards, an impressive opening night for the 2018 Glyndebourne Festival. For those, moreover, who cared to think, it may have had a good deal still to tell us about our own hopes and fears, about our own prejudices and our struggles, however vain, to surmount them. As Carl Dahlhaus once observed, ‘it is precisely in order to radicalise conflicts — so that “resolutions” are ruled out — that dramas are written; if not, they would be treatises.’

La finta giardiniera, Royal College of Music, 28 November 2016

Britten Theatre

 

Violante/Sandrina – Josephine Goddard

Belfiore – Joel Williams

Anchise – Richard Pinkstone

Arminda – Ida Ränzlöv

Ramiro – Katie Coventry

Serpetta – Harriet Eyley

Roberto – Julien van Mellaerts

 

Harry Fehr (director)

Roxana Haines (assistant director)

Yannis Thavoris (designs)

John Bishop (lighting)

Victoria Newlyn (choreography)

Royal College of Music of Opera Orchestra

Michael Rosewell (conductor)

I saw my first Finta giardiniera close to eight years ago, at the Royal College of Music’s Britten Theatre. In between, I have also been fortunate enough to see a very different staging, indeed a more or less total reimagining of the work, from Hans Neuenfels, in Berlin. Now, it was back to the Britten Theatre for a new staging. Not too bad, then, for a work that hovers on the fringes of the repertory – although how absurd that a work fully the equal of any of Haydn’s operas is still so relatively neglected, if not quite so scandalously neglected as Haydn’s works themselves. Three cheers, though, to the RCM, for another splendid evening, and for placing such faith in this lovely work!

 

Harry Fehr’s production is ‘based on one which was first presented at the 2013 Buxton Festival’: slightly odd wording, but anyway. The important thing is that it is fresh, lively, abidingly theatrical. It does not explore the depths that Neuenfels did in his Pforten der Liebe; there is little, perhaps no, sense of the darkness of love, nor indeed of the German director’s fantasy. By the same token, though, it avoids the tendency towards preciosity of the previous RCM production (Jean-Claude Auvray). A moneyed, contemporary Long Island setting works well and, quite simply, looks good. Yannis Thavoris’s excellent designs are resourceful in their suggestion of broader social milieu, but also provide elegant framing for the action. For my taste, Fehr perhaps overplays the farcical element; there were certainly times when I wished the production would calm down, just a little. On the other hand, a work very much, I think, in the tradition of Carlo Goldoni arguably brings Mozart closer than he had previously come, or would come again, to the world of Rossini. I just do not think it is that close, and should have preferred something that engaged with the surely undeniable presentiments of Così fan tutte. (On the other hand, when one thinks what Così often must endure…) In any case, all is smartly, slickly accomplished – and it offers a fine showcase for the young singers.

 

Fortunately, there was not much in the musical performances that approached Rossini. (However much I may differ from the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt with respect to what I want to hear in Mozart, I certainly share with him that vehement opposition he voiced to any tendency towards unvariegated breathlessness.) Michael Rosewell’s reading did not draw especial attention to itself. Tempi were judiciously varied; perhaps a little more variety would not have gone amiss, but I am being ungrateful. The spirited playing of the orchestra only occasionally had me miss the sound of a slightly larger band (strings a parsimonious 6.5.4.3.2), but that may well have been as much a matter of acoustics. Jo Ramadan’s harpsichord continuo proved supportive, exhibiting none of the irritating exhibitionism one often hears today (especially on the fortepiano). Orchestral solos were well taken throughout; if one does not miss the clarinet in Mozart, one must be on the right track.

 

The disguised marchioness herself, Violante/Sandrina, received a likeable performance from Josephine Goddard, integrity of character at the heart of her reading. Joel Williams’s cavalier, not a little devilish Belfiore would clearly return to her, and he did. The sparkle of his eminently musical performance was matched, at the very least, by Ida Ränzlöv’s Arminda, dressed to kill (not quite literally, although one would not necessarily have been surprised) by Thavoris. Richard Pinkstone’s tenor contrasted enough from Williams’s to suggest difference of character; his subtly more buffo (never too much) demeanour confirmed it. (There are considerable distinctions of social order in Mozart’s writing, even this early; almost the only thing this opera lacks is the later delineation and depth of individual character.) If Pinkstone’s Anchise, splendidly contrasted to this summer’s outstanding Hänsel und Gretel Witch, thereby attested to considerable versatility, Katie Coventry’s Ramiro confirmed her gift, already shown by her Hänsel, for the mezzo trouser role, both in timbre and demeanour. Such alertness and social awareness extended to the pair of servants rounding off the cast: Julien van Mellaerts’s affable Roberto and Harriet Eyley’s knowing Serpetta, very much in the line of Pergolesi. Ensemble was tight throughout, permitting different lines to tell and yet also to combine. Such is the essence of this opera; it was equally the essence of this performance.