Simplicity is its own reward in Boheme Opera New Jersey’s recent production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”
“Simplicity” might not register as a word denoting high praise. In regard to Boheme’s “Butterfly,” directed by Stefanos Koroneos and conducted by Joseph Pucciatti, it is a blessed boon that allows the beauty of Puccini’s music, the pathos of one of literature’s saddest stories, and the abundant talents of Koroneos’ uniformly excellent cast to be elegantly exposed and unceasingly gripping.
Koroneos keeps his production elemental. Little fancy or bold occurs. In place of flash and flare, Koroneos opts for the straightforward and direct. His is a realistic “Butterfly” that depicts extraordinary events in an ordinary way seemingly akin to how even the dramatic unfolds in life.
The approach is counterintuitively effective. It makes each moment of the opera important and creates its own brand of intensity. Koroneos’ simplicity, coupled with Pucciatti’s perfect tempo, allows you to see the wealth of thoughts going on in each character’s mind as he or she sings. It makes for an expressive yet introspective articulation of all that “Butterfly’s” various storytellers — John Luther Long (the story’s original writer), David Belasco (the playwright that brought it to the stage), and Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (the opera’s librettists) — provide for the performers to relate.
Out of simplicity comes complexity that elicits emotions more intimately and essentially than high dudgeon and exaggerated drama would. The Boheme production of “Madama Butterfly” is lovely and affecting because it stays within human bounds, lets you clearly see and understand what the lead characters — Butterfly, Pinkerton, Sharpless, Suzuki, and Goro — believe and consider, and makes the tragedy to come more desolating and poignant.
Both Koroneos and Pucciatti are meticulous in their styles. Boheme Opera New Jersey specializes in clean, efficient style of presentation that illuminates an opera and makes its individual facets more visible and moving. It would be impossible to watch, or hear, this production of “Madama Butterfly” without your heart constantly breaking for Butterfly (Ashley Bell), your disdain and pity alternately building for Pinkerton (Jeremy Brauner), the American naval officer who marries Butterfly under convenient terms for convenient purposes, and you constantly wishing the wisdom of the Sharpless (Daniel Sutin), a U.S. consul to Japan and misgivings of Suzuki (Ashley Kay Armstrong), Butterfly’s servant, would have more influence.
Koroneos and Pucciatti involve you deeply in Butterfly’s romantic nature, Pinkerton’s practical and legalistic attitude, Suzuki’s prescient perceptions and worries, and Sharpless’s remarkable diplomacy and attempts to prevent, then ameliorate, a foreseeably calamitous situation. The result is a production as beautiful as Long’s original story and Puccini’s lush and affecting score.
It is also an interesting production because the motives and repentance of Pinkerton are portrayed with unusual depth as is the Herculean effort made by Sharpless to establish reason and thwart what he knows to be foolishness that cannot lead to any but an unhappy end. Scenes with Nagasaki’s religious leader, the Bonze, also Butterfly’s uncle, and the result of him ordering Butterfly shunned, also carry more weight than in most “Butterflys” because simplicity again works to make the Bonze’s pronouncement more personal and insidious.
The concept of letting Puccini’s music and Illica and Giacosa’s words take focus is evident in Giorgio Lalov’s set and costumes. The Kendall Hall Theater stage was bare but for a familiar and realistically sized Japanese paper house with sliding doors and multi-purpose rooms. Situating the house from slightly right of center stage to the boundary of left stage, and placing its most crucial door at dead center, Lalov gives Koroneos a lot of clean playing areas and keeps most of the action where it will be the most accessible to the audience. Stage right is kept open so that Butterfly can retreat there to contemplate her various predicaments and heartbreakingly watch for Pinkerton’s ship to return to Nagasaki Harbor.
Lalov’s costumes bring color to the stage as various guests and walk-ons don traditional kimonos that dress the stage without cluttering it and add some natural, unobtrusive liveliness to the proceedings.
Vocally, the company is a gem. Each voice is clear and expressive. The singers, to a person, create a purity of sound that enhance Puccini’s melodies and make harmonies, particularly between the Ashleys playing Butterfly and Suzuki, a delight.
Bell is a disarming Butterfly. Having been forced by her family poverty to become a geisha, in this context one who entertains men by singing as opposed to other favors, Butterfly has a sense of how to present herself yet, as Bell plays her, retains an innocence that clouds her sense of reality, especially as regards the marriage of a turn-of-the-last-century Japanese woman to an American military officer. (The text as well as Sharpless make it clear that a marriage contract involving a foreigner can be cancelled at any time, something Pinkerton understands and relies upon, while Butterfly believes love will conquer.)
Bell’s Butterfly is discernibly in love with Pinkerton. She is not marrying him as a lark or with the idea he will someday leave in the ship that brought him and probably not return.
Bell lets you see Butterfly’s longing. You can hear genuine optimism and expectation of dreams being fulfilled in her lovely rendition of “Un bel di,” the best-known aria of the opera.
The purity of Bell’s pleasingly pitched voice matches the meticulousness of the Boheme production. Her tone makes all she sings more effective.
Jeremy Brauner also has a supple tenor voice that never breaks or strains while reaching high notes. He is also an able actor who easily conveys how much Pinkerton regards his marriage to Butterfly as almost a joke. He laugh openly as the possibility he may cancel his marriage contract when he leaves Japan and takes pleasure, just after proposing to Butterfly, in toasting his eventual American wife.
Brauner is equally adept in later scenes in which Pinkerton realizes Butterfly’s earnest belief in and longing for him and learns he has a son.
Daniel Sutin makes Sharpless more consequential that I’ve seen in the character in countless previous productions of “Madama Butterfly.” He is as moving as Butterfly in his pleas to stop what he sees as an ill-fated marriage and sincerely assiduous when he tries to sort out matters when Pinkerton returns and the circumstances Sharpless dreaded come to fruition.
Sutin personifies the reason, diligence, and intelligence Sharpless represents. His is a compelling turn that adds to the depth of Koroneos’s staging.
Ashley Kay Armstrong exudes dedication as Suzuki, who speaks out to Butterfly and appeals to others to try to save her mistress from the sadness that comes from her misunderstanding and faith in a happy conclusion. You can see the burden Suzuki has, particularly in scenes when Suzuki must watch stoically and dispassionately as reality unfolds or Butterfly is being harmed in ways Suzuki, as a servant, cannot intervene to prevent.
John Easterlin is a wily, clever Goro, who is smooth is his role at marriage broker and who is honest about arranging contracts that have convenient “out” clauses. Easterlin’s Goro has more sophistication that anyone on stage, including Sharpless. He also has a knack for brightening the stage when he appears.
Joseph Lazarus’ lighting was superb, especially when Butterfly does her night-long vigil to await Pinkerton’ arrival.
“Madama Butterfly,” produced by Boheme Opera New Jersey, played from March 24 to 26, at the Kendall Hall Theater at The College of New Jersey. For more on the company, visit www.bohemeopera.org.
