The Met debuted its latest production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on the opening night of the 2006-07 season. Anthony Minghella’s staging with sets by Michael Levine, costumes by Han Feng, lighting by Peter Mumford and Bunraku puppetry by Blind Summit Theatre immediately became one of the most visually talked-about Met productions of the past 100 years, its visual and theatrical impact, with its easily sliding screens, evocative minimalist sets, striking overhead mirror and lacquered floor, brilliantly colored costumes, paper lanterns, falling cherry blossoms and the expressive Bunraku puppet for Butterfly’s child – the latter initially controversial, but ultimately emotionally effective. There is a formality to the staging that eschews any triteness or stereotypes: no tiny steps for Butterfly, no Intrusive coyness, and a blaze of colors that keep the eye as fascinated as the music and singing keep the ear.
I have been lucky enough to see the production five times in between but I must admit that this new iteration is the finest of them all. The singing over the years has varied, with B-listers just "filling in". Of course, the sets and production remain the same, but here little tweaks and a just about perfect Cio-Cio San got to the core of this, Puccini's saddest opera, in a way I've never experienced before.
In previous revivals, in addition to the resistance against Butterfly's child being portrayed by a puppet controlled by figures draped in black – a resistance that faded shortly after the first season because of the expertise and sensitivity with which it was done – we learned that good Butterflys are not that difficult to come by but great ones are very very rare. I must admit that not since the glory days of Renata Scotto have I been so emotionally moved and vocally satisfied until Ailyn Pérez took the Met stage. She has sung it elsewhere but this was her Met debut in the role and it was nothing short of an absolute triumph.
Pérez was complete, vocally and dramatically. It is interesting to watch a soprano mature and grow over a period of more than a decade; too often one notes vocal decline, complacency and/or a slight fudging of difficult passages. Here one sensed a soprano performing to her utmost artistic ability. She is close to becoming a great spinto, but proves over and over again here that her gorgeous lyric sound has not been sacrificed. Butterfly’s entrance, an exposed trial-by-fire if ever there was one, was sung delicately, sometimes on a wisp of breath, sometimes more fully, was capped by a full-throated high D flat. She was shy, curious and modest. Her “Un bel dì” was an object lesson in storytelling, almost a recited hallucination, and rose to the written forte B flat, which Pérez then reduced to a ghostly pianissimo for the orchestral coda. An opera in itself. She raged against Goro, she was attentive and curious with Sharpless, and when the blow came, her collapse was felt to the rafters, her resolve expressed in the darkest part of her voice.The sighting of the ship overwhelmed, the Cherry duet proved the oasis before the catastrophe. Her Death Scene, without a sob, was pathetic without being maudlin. She kept her dignity until the end.
The rest of the cast was superb. Mezzo Hyona Kim was more than a handmaiden Suzuki, she was a friend and bulwark. Korean tenor SeokJong Baek exhibited a simply amazing voice as Pinkerton. Solid, attractive, with high notes to spare, if there was anything off about his portrayal, it was a lack of physical warmth. Andrzej Filończyk, who impressed early in the season in Kavalier & Klay played Sharpless somewhat aggressively, but with a big, grand sound that bodes well for future roles.
Marco Armiliato, by now very familiar to Met audiences, led a beautiful, sensitive and powerful performance. He is so good at what he does that he is often taken for granted. He should not be. He’s a Met treasure.
Try to catch one of the remaining performances starring Pérez; It’s like hearing the opera the way you always imagined it.
