Brilliant Butterfly

Puccini's Madame Butterfly has always suffered from a kind of triple cultural vision. Based on an American story (by John Luther Long) and play (by David Belasco), it tells what an Italian thinks an American would feel if he went ranching with a Japanese girl. Most of the time, this confusion is compounded by the staging. In the words of an old Far East hand, Cornelius V. Starr, Butterfly productions usually present "a kind of tourist Yokohama, or half New York Chinatown."

Starr, a wealthy insurance executive, decided to remedy the situation, offered to finance a really authentic new Met production of the opera as viewed through Japanese eyes. The result still had a few blurred edges, but physically and vocally it was surely the handsomest Butterfly ever mounted on a U.S. stage.

Authentic Touches. The previous Met mounting of Butterfly lasted an astonishing 34 seasons, dating back to the year Geraldine Farrar retired from the role. For the new production, General Manager Rudolf Bing suggested several European designers, including Cecil Beaton, but Patron Starr would have none of them, personally went to Japan and brought back two experts: Yoshio Aoyama of Tokyo's Kabukiza Theater as director and Stage Designer Motohiro Nagasaka for sets and costumes. Between them, they stripped Butterfly of all its sukiyaki-styled stage business, painted it in subdued colors ("to express inner harmonies and conflicts"), dressed the actors in gorgeously detailed costumes hand-sewn in Japan. They also added authentic dramatic touches.

The characters no longer walk in mincing steps, or tuck their hands in their sleeves, movements characteristic of China rather than Japan. The fireflies that spangled the night sky during the love duet in Act I have been abandoned (there are no fireflies during the cherry-blossom season) ; though Puccini's gonglike orchestral effects are kept, the onstage gong that signaled the wedding is out (gongs are sounded at Japanese funerals). Cio-Cio-San no longer punches holes in the shoji (paper screen) walls of the house to watch for Pinkerton's return--for the good reason that a shoji slides open. Director Aoyama has Cio-Cio-San bind her legs before her suicide to prevent exposing them ("Even dying, a lady stays elegant"). As for Puccini's music, Director Aoyama still feels it is out of character--Puccini's death theme is a Japanese drinking song--but he admits that it has always packed them in in Japan.

Tribute to a People. Good as the new production was, it was the performance that made last week's Butterfly truly memorable. In her first Metropolitan appearance in the role, Italian Soprano Antonietta Stella, 28, made her Cio-Cio-San a wonderful complex of childish fever and womanly fire, effectively underplayed the bathetic frills the role is heir to. Her large, easily ranging voice shimmered and soared ecstatically, brought the house alive with a roar after her famous aria, Un bel di.

As Lieut. Pinkerton, hulking Tenor Eugenio Fernandi, making his U.S. debut, rolled about the stage like a stub-footed schoolboy, but in his big moments swelled his barrel chest and belted out thundering, on-target salvos of sound that rocked the house. Conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos had one of his best nights, led orchestra and singers in a carefully controlled performance that lent tension and dramatic shape to the libretto. The production, said pleased Angel Starr, was "not only great opera and great theater, but a tribute to the Japanese people, their taste and art."

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