Puccini (1862-1924):  Madama Butterfly (1900-05).  Isabelle Kabatu
(Chio-Chio-San), James Cornelison (Pinkerton), Grant Youngblood
(Sharpless), Wendy White (Suzuki), Emmanuel Villaume, cond.  Sixth
performance, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA, January 15, 1999.

Let's let fly with a whoopper:  Puccini's greatest opera is a paradigm for
the Twentieth Century, both musically and historically.  Consider:

Wasn't it a combination of arrogant gunboat diplomacy/imperialism
(Pinkerton) and adherence to concepts of military honor (Chio-Chio-San)
that led to the cultural suicide of World War I, which in turn inevitably
spawned World War II and the Cold War? Wasn't it the maximization of
lyricism/romanticism (Puccini/Wagner) that led to a backlash of
rationalization (Schoenberg, et.  al) and primitivism (Stravinsky/Jazz)?
See-no one needs tomes of history books when you've got three amazing hours
of the century's progenitor right in your nearest opera house!

And Puccini was a progenitor, even if one denies the socio-political
parallels.  So many neo-romantics have dipped so deeply in his well as
they emerged from the rubble of the Modernist era-an era consequent of the
Pinkerton/Chio-Chio-San alliance.  The least principled of these composers
have stolen and posthumously cheapened Puccini's best moments.  One has
only to recall Knight Andrew Lloyd Weber's piracy of the Johnson/Minnie
waltz tune from Fanciulla del West for the "Turn your face away" section
of "The Music of the Night," or Claude-Michel Schonberg's abduction of the
Humming Chorus for the sob-song of Le Mis, "Bring Him Home" (not to mention
the shameless paraphrase by the latter-day Schonberg of the King and Queen
duet from Handel's Solomon for "Castle on a Cloud").  If only these
composers wearing valuables snatched from Puccini's tomb could have given
homage to sources of inspiration in the more subtle ways Puccini invokes
Wagner and later, Debussy!

As to the performance under review, there were influences, but only one
detrimental, namely the Chinese look of Pinkerton's supposedly American
uniforms.  These barely ornamented sack-cloths did James Cornelison no
good, emphasizing the ordinariness of his performance in contrast to the
attire and superb musical characterization of Sharpless by Grant
Youngblood.

Isabelle Kabatu's Chio-Chio-San was done in the Italian manner, with
passionate gestures and facial portrayals.  Her voice, after a slightly
rocky start, was amazingly penetrating and clear.  The combination of her
acting and voice (the latter despite occasionally harsh aspects) led to
a mesmerizing performance forcefully recognized by the audience.  Wendy
White's Suzuki was admirable, as was Philip Skinner's brief but scary
appearance as the Bonze.  Emmanuel Villaume's conducting, while initially
a bit too matter-of-fact, evolved into a more fluid and sensitive pacing,
most effective with the rubato preceding the favorite moment of the Act 2
Butterly/Suzuki duet, "Gettiamo a mani piene . . ."

Altogether such a fine evening, with Puccini as alive today as in 1905, one
wonders if the rest of this century ever existed, or was even necessary!

Jeff Dunn
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