LOS ANGELES - In the middle of a month-long run of "Madama Butterfly,"
new principal singers made their debut Thursday night in the Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion.

The small, pleasant voices of Xiu Wei Sun (Cio-Cio-San) and Valter Borin
(Pinkerton) blended well with Kent Nagano's restrained, chamber-music-like
orchestral accompaniment and Robert Wilson's ultra-minimalist production.

Borin has the smaller, but more reliable voice.  Tiny Xiu Wei Sun produces
a rougher, louder sound, but not always on pitch.

Dramatically, the two lived up to the difficult demands of Wilson's
bizarre world of standoffish "love." In this "Butterfly" where the lovers
don't touch or even look at each other, Borin's constant examination of
the ceiling, with a permanently smug expression, and her words of
unconditional devotion and bold rapture addressed to wherever he wasn't
both scaled the heights of anti-acting.

Wilson's famous/infamous decade-old Opera Bastille production of a bare
stage, spastic/pseudo-"Oriental" movements, and sumptuous costumes (by
Frida Parmeggiani) from some other planet has made a curiously mild-mannered
impression at its North American premiere.  I am only guessing, but I
imagine Wilson would have preferred a mix of boos and cheers to what
actually happened: uniformly polite applause, and mild approval for an
"interesting" production.

Celebrating its 100th birthday this month, "Butterfly" has been done
every which way through the years, with the emphasis usually on passion
and tragedy, but occasionally highlighting aspects of American imperialism
(could that be meaningful, even today?) and/or the ethnic/economic/political
East-West clash.

Wilson removes passion, but leaves everything else in, and adds a
Marat/Sade aspect of clinical disconnect and barely-controlled insanity
throughout the story.

Performances from holdovers in the run ranged from the excellence of
Susanna Poretsky's Suzuki and Greg Fedderly's Goro, to the impressive
stage presence of Alan Opie (Sharpless), whose voice is now barely
suitable for the role.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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