Madame Butterfly: Puccini veterans take on familiar roles

November 19, 2010 | By Andrew Adler | Special to the The Courier-Journal

Consider the following scenario: an opera stager who cut his directorial teeth on Puccini's “Madame Butterfly,” who has mounted the work several times and is preparing the work for its latest Brown Theatre close-up tonight and Sunday afternoon. By the way — he happens to be David Roth, Kentucky Opera's gregarious honcho-in-chief.

Next to him is Yunah Lee, a noted Korean-born soprano celebrated for her way with Cio-Cio San, the opera's title character, whose fate is bound up in love, loss and death.

These principals, Roth and Lee, have anchored portions of their respective careers with “Madame Butterfly,” and both bring strong points of view to their respective assignments.

So is this a case of the operatic Unstoppable Force meeting the Immovable Object?

Hardly. In fact, the immense popularity of “Madame Butterfly” — no opera is performed more often in the United States — is a prime factor in uniting potentially opposing interpretive perspectives. Credit a narrative framework that doesn't squander a moment as it moves from naive romance to wrenching tragedy.

“The story is so clear and obvious that I haven't met any director who I don't agree with about the basic concept — how we deliver that story,” Lee said in a recent phone interview between rehearsals. “There's not much room to twist.”

Perhaps the biggest variable isn't with the opera, but who's involved. “Every time I go to a different production,” Lee observed, “there are different people that make relationships and chemistry.”

For Roth, directing this “Butterfly” connects him with his time, almost two decades ago, on the staff of Minnesota Opera.

“My desire to do this was deeply rooted in my progress as a stage director, and in honoring my mentor, Colin Graham. We worked together way back in 1993 in Minnesota, and he brought me to Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where I assisted him for two years.”

Kentucky Opera ended up buying OTSL's scenery for “Madame Butterfly,” employing it first for a staging at the Kentucky Center's Whitney Hall, and now for its run inside the considerably smaller Brown Theatre.

“We are getting back to the real, intense vision of Colin Graham with this production,” Roth said, emphasizing its “more intimate scope, focusing not on the trappings of grand opera, but real characters and emotions.”

Roth knew early on that he wanted Lee for the role of Cio-Cio San, a geisha in late 19thth-century Nagasaki who falls, all too hard, for a charismatic American Navy lieutenant. Cio-Cio San is one of the touchstone challenges for a lyric soprano — not simply in Puccini, but in all of the core operatic repertory.

Having gained initial success in such Puccini works as “La Bohème” and “Suor Angelica,” Lee is steeped in the composer's expressive style. And being Korean, Lee believes she's able to peer closely into the neighboring world of Japanese aesthetics.

“Growing up in Korea, there was an Asian culture that was in many ways similar,” she said. “The Asian mind is very reserved in terms of gesture and body language.”

Lee understands how Cio-Cio San moves from an innocent, love-addled teenager in Act One to a figure of heroic, sustained patience in Acts Two and Three, which take place three years later. Many productions of “Madame Butterfly” perform the second and third acts with only a short musical bridge between them, heightening the sweep toward impending disaster.

“There is a seamless transition,” Roth explained, “which is all part of Cio-Cio San's experience from the beginning of that day to the end.” Puccini ushers in the evening of his story with the so-called “Humming Chorus,” a masterstroke of gorgeous
understatement. Then, as Cio-Cio San contemplates the return of her American husband, she sings the opera's signature aria: “Un bel di” (“One Fine Day”).

“It was certainly Colin's vision that you don't take an act-break there,” Roth said. “You can't break that dramatic tension.”

That tension becomes amplified in a smallish theater like the Brown, where singers can find themselves just a few feet from their listeners. “I can see the reaction of the audience, especially in the first few rows,” Lee said.

“I can see their faces, their tears coming down.”

Such proximity can be encouraging at one instant, and a bit frustrating the next. For every crier, there seems to be, well, somebody less involved. “Some people are falling asleep,” Lee acknowledged, “or opening up candies.”

Not that she has much time to dwell on those distractions, at least while on stage. Credit the composer's gift for involving his cast in every moment of the action, whether or not they are singing.

Here “Puccini found his real voice and created this truly genius work,” Roth said. “One of the things as a director that attracted me was his passion for the theater, his passion for creating authenticity, that took it beyond verismo or realism. And man, does he give you a great work to develop for the stage.”

‘Madame Butterfly'

• When: 8 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Sunday
• Where: Brown Theatre, 315 W. Broadway.
• Cost: $35-$95
• Info: (502) 584-7777, or www.kentuckycenter.org