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 [log in to unmask]