It is 21 years since the première of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production for the Royal Opera, since which time there have been many revivals and many outstanding singers in the role of Butterfly, Cio-Cio-San. So it is an interesting question why this version, starring Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian, recorded in March 2024, is the first to be issued on disk.
It follows a turning point in performance that came two years ago. The opera, lovely though it is, has long been a subject of contention due to the exploitation of its 15-year-old heroine and its sometimes less than respectful attitude toward Japanese culture. So revival director Dan Dooner worked with specialists in Japanese movement and design, and as a result, hand gestures and mannerisms became more authentic and the dress and make-up of characters such as the marriage broker Goro less of a caricature.
That revised version came to the stage in 2022 and was broadcast to cinemas later that year, featuring a wonderful, devastating performance by Maria Agresta. This later revival, now available on DVD and BluRay, is essentially the same, with the same set and costume, the same casual, thoughtlessly cruel Pinkerton in Joshua Guerrero, as well as a couple of other retained singers.
Yet the performances of the two leading ladies differ to a remarkable degree. Agresta was the naïve innocent, overwhelmed with joy, pouring her heart out at the end with an exhausting passion that seemed to leave her drained; Grigorian by contrast seems to carry an irredeemable sadness with her from the very beginning.
There is to an unusual degree an indication of Butterfly’s back-story, the death of a loved father, disgraced and forced to commit suicide, her loss of family and of reputation. Exactly how she lived, we can only surmise, but there is a sense of resignation, even while professing her happiness to be married. “Love me a little,” she meekly tells Pinkerton as she undresses, and, while recalling how men catch butterflies then pin them to a board, mimes a stab wound that anticipates her end.
It is a thoroughly convincing performance that brings original insight into the role. Grigorian sings beautifully too: “Un bel di” naturally gets the usual, and deserved, ovation, but it was the exquisite high note at the end of “Gia il sole” that gave me goosebumps.
Hongni Wu is a sympathetic, more worldly-wise Suzuki, and Guerrero remains a rather stand-offish cad, but rather playing down the crude Yankee arrogance. Ya-Chung Huang is a sufficiently but not excessively venal Goro, and Jeremy White and Josef Jeongmeen Ahn effectively reprise their roles as the Bonze (overlord) and Prince Yamadori. Lauri Vasar is a censorious Sharpless, but I found his tone rather uneven, and Veena Akama-Makia seems an unlikely figure as the wife of the galivanting Pinkerton.
There are more luxuriously furnished productions than designer Christian Fenouillat’s simple staging, but it concentrates attention on the psychological drama and gives glimpses beyond Cio-Cio-San’s home of Nagasaki harbour or her garden, and the costumes of Agostino Cavalca are lovely—what might pass for the Japanese of Sunday best without unnatural ostentation.
Reviewer: Colin Davison