Posted8 Apr 2024
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Madame Butterfly: A Farewell Ritual
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MoreWhen I saw my first Madame Butterfly, designed by Jun Kaneko at Opera Omaha in 2019, I was mesmerized. A beautiful simple set, evocative and uniquely Jun. The person next to me jumping up after “Un bel dì” as if at a baseball game. Otherworldly music. And my eyes growing ever wider from discomfort with the words on the supertitle screen. I felt uneasy, but that feeling was drowned out by the vigorous applause that filled my ears.
When I was 18, I emigrated from Japan to the United States, sharing the same desires Cio Cio San has until she reaches that age at the end of the opera and concludes she can no longer live honorably. This year I turn 36, ending the halfway cycle to a major milestone, one’s fifth cycle of twelve years, and twice as old as Cio Cio San when she takes her life. Asked to conceptualize a new production of Madame Butterfly, I kept thinking about that night in Omaha, the love for Jun’s beautiful design, and for the music. I kept thinking about Cio Cio San — just fifteen at the beginning of the opera, and my life in Japan at that age. I kept thinking about honor in this show compared to honor as cultivated among my kendo teammates.
I thought about everything that raced through my mind that night, and my hesitancy to “reclaim” Madame Butterfly. The following was my proposal to Opera Philadelphia:
Madame Butterfly: A Farewell Ritual
Dolls are not thrown away in Japan.
There is a ceremony to give them a proper good-bye.
It’s an appreciation of the doll — for sharing its time.
It’s a celebration of us — as we come to outgrow it.
“Unrooted” perhaps best describes how Madame Butterfly lands with me. Puccini trapped Butterfly in a beautiful score. In turn, Butterfly has become a trap: AAPI artists are asked to lend it authenticity and life in new productions that promise much but change little.
To liberate ourselves from Puccini’s beautiful trap I propose accepting Cio Cio San as the puppet he created and rendering her as such onstage. Through this form, our production becomes a cautionary tale, examining how ongoing misrepresentation in content and character portrayal affects us all and takes over, unless and until we put our emphasis on the future — positivity and empowerment.
Thank you to those who support our voices, and to the creative colleagues with whom I’m fortunate to collaborate. I hope, through this production, to stimulate conversation toward forward-looking productions.
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