Madama Butterfly, Opera San Jose, Feb. 23 2014

Back to San Jose a week later to see the other cast than the one we saw on Feb. 16: 

Cio-Cio-san: Jennifer Forni
Suzuki: Nicole Birkland
BF Pinkerton: Christopher Bengochea    
Sharpless: Evan Brummel
Goro: Robert Norman
Commissioner: Silas Elash
The Bonze: Matthew Anchel
Prince Yamadori: Torlef Borsting
Kate Pinkerton: Carin Gilfry
Trouble: Owen Neuendorffer
Conductor: Joseph Marcheso
Stage director: Brad Dalton

Forni sang the role of Butterfly very very well, but in some indefinable way lacked the passion that López had brought to the role a week earlier. A beta.

Madama Butterfly, Opera San Jose, Feb. 16 2014

When you get into the story of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, you can find a great amount of very interesting history. The opera is about a young Japanese woman who rents herself out as a “temporary wife” to an American sailor for a few months. The tragedy is that when he leaves, he tells Butterfly that he will return when the robins nest again. But when he does return, 3 years later, it’s with his “real” American wife. The story is based on the play Madame Butterfly by David Belasco, which was based on the novella Madame Butterfly by John Luther Long, which was in its turn informed by the novel Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti. In each case, the story concerns a sailor, a young woman in Nagasaki, and a temporary marriage. This practice can be traced as far back as 1597, when Francesco Carletti observed it in Nagasaki, and later reported on it in his book My Voyage Around the World.

The set for Madama Butterfly, as presented by Opera San Jose, consisted largely of a shiny rectangular black platform raised a few inches above the stage, with half a dozen narrow silver concentric rectangles drawn near its edges. In front, like a step preceding a porch, was a similar shiny black rectangle, with a one-foot-by-twenty area next to the main platform, filled with rocks. The black back wall was actually a picture window of sorts, with sliding walls that could be drawn aside to reveal the stripes of an American flag, a starry sky, an abstract design, and other directorial choices. The little house on Higashi Hill was quite simple, just three shoji screens that could be raised and lowered as needed, plus a little bit of furniture.

Our cast: 
Cio-Cio-san: Cecilia Violetta López
Suzuki: Lisa Chavez
BF Pinkerton: James Callon
Sharpless: Zachary Altman
Goro: Michael Mendelsohn
Commissioner: Silas Elash
The Bonze: Matthew Anchel
Prince Yamadori: Torlef Borsting
Kate Pinkerton: Carin Gilfry
Trouble: Sammy Tittle
Conductor: David Rohrbaugh
Stage director: Brad Dalton

This was one of the most moving Butterflys that I have seen. According to a person who is in a position to know, the Butterfly in the other cast has a bigger voice, but López emotes more—and she certainly did. We were all drained at the end. David Rohrbaugh’s conducting was, as always, exemplary; we’ll miss him when he retires at the end of this run. For some reason one of the company’s finest basses ever, Silas Elash, was assigned the tiny role of Commissioner rather than the Bonze. The part of the Bonze isn’t much larger, but Anchel could barely be heard. Overall, a very strong beta, nearly an alpha.