Puccini

Lecture 2
Work for a fortnight.
My Geisha production of Madam Butterfly? Whats it trying to say?
- Realism?
- Where does the film fit in with all these issues?
o Article not the sum total of things
- Film not politically correct! Keep some degree of distance from the political issues
Representation of Japan and Madam Butterfly
Representation of Japan in terms of Europe
Move back and forth between the two
General Comments about the place of this opera: Academics that think it shouldnt be put on
stage, something about the opera that prevents anyone from doing anything interesting with
Madam Butterfly
-

Poses a big problem: HOWEVER arguably the most popular opera of the 20 th Century
Number of rewritings/different versions
That sort of reworking rock albums, tonnes of versions
o Entire course of studying this
Controversy/proliferation = something almost traumatic about this opera
o Portrayal of women on stage
The controversy and excitement is strange there are ways in which Madam Butterfly is
ordinary and normal (other operas that portray other/foreign culture)
Other operas are about western men who fall in love with foreign women
Culture clash was a fashion in the 20th Century already on its way out by the time Madam
Butterfly was written
The way that Madam Butterfly portrays the difference in culture and earlier traditions that
provokes the audience makes the opera more relevant
Opinion that Madam Butterfly is a problematic opera:
Rigid West vs East
o Difference has many manifestations:
Westerners = individuals
3 of them, never sing together, very individual characters
Easterners = groups
Behave as members of a collective (generalisation)
Individual vs collective distinction
o Western characters allowed to move, Japanese characters stay in one place
None of the Japanese characters leave Japan
Not only do the Japanese characters stay in Japan, they are massively
associated with domesticity
Madam Butterfly doesnt leave the house until she dies
o West = male, Asia = female
Lots of operas, where they only go in one direction
Attempt to make whatever exotic culture is being depicted seem passive
Political conquest, sexual conquest (gender opposition) way of publicising
larger political issues
Pinkerton = explicit that it is just a marriage for ease
o When discussing it is done in a normal Western context, nothing out of the ordinary
o Dependable, foursquare
Musical opposition between the 2 characters
Women = swarm of bees

o If theyre like bees theyre just like nature

Pinkerton human
o Whiskey
o When Pinkerton talks something matters, when they do nothing does
Women sing together, Pinkerton by himself
Butterfly = virtuosic solo line (including a Db)
o Suddenly drops to recit. (sim to Mim) perhaps more creepy, deflating
Mim more realistic, Butterfly deflated
o Words she is singing are totally passive
Happiest girl in Japan
I have no objections
I was summoned
Sense that shes getting married but the way she describes this
marriage isnt that she made any decision in this!
Butterfly just an object for Pinkerton does this make her an object for us?
Supposed to sympathise with Pinkerton to begin with and then this changes through the
course of the opera:
o Doesnt sing at all in the second act
o Something seems to go wrong
o First act seen through Pinkertons perspective
o Wouldnt it be fun to have a fake marriage for a while and then go back home
Seems to be so unappealing
Music doesnt seem to be like a bad persons music
Text and music saying different things?
o First act could be hero, but then it changes
o Starts off in his perspective, and then changes (quite a difficult thing to consider)
Doesnt matter if youre a woman/man/Italian/English
o Fairly standard to represent foreign cultures something changes neutral universal
perspective can no longer be the same in MB (like in Tosca and La Bohme)

Groos Article: tries to identify who the real Madam Butterfly and the real Pinkerton are.
- The very fact that the operas try to be realistic enacts the way in which critics talk about it
- Voyeuristic?
- The way in which the city of Nagasaki is described: what were there actual lives like?
- Where the opera is actually sat
- Seems based in terms of all the oppositions: Japan is supposed to be the pure,
straightforward, uncorrupted place with mountains, hills, trees and fog and nothing more
o Nagasaki totally different (128-129) It is difficult to imagine the rough boom town
atmosphere although by the 1890s foreign community no longer was the same,
the situation still shocked the missionary community (36 bars, brothels, hotels)
If you think of the opera not taking place in such a beautiful environment,
thats similar to European cities today, with rough backgrounds, compromised
conversations happening
West and East breakdown: the place where the opera is set is much more
culturally mixed than it seems
Find where this opera actually takes place
- The MUSICBOX: is there someway to get the messiness of Nagasaki into the operas
music?
o Melodies from the Chinese music box: Japan, authenticity etc.
Music box much more complex as a symbol of Japanese culture
Purchased in Shanghai in a department store (commercial, 19th
Century)
Sold back to Chinese people after having gone to Switzerland
o Huge want of Western clocks/civilisation

o WHOLE museum in Beijing dedicated obsessively to Western

clocks
Sense that this music box, which is supposed to suggest
pureness and authenticity suggests things are much
more messy
Tonnes of evidence that suggests that everything is a lot
more intermingled than they seem
ANY realistic detail in this opera suddenly starts to fall apart

Pasler Article: more compelling of undermining the opposition of the East and the West
- set out: starts by observing world premiere of MB was a total disaster
- Biggest failure of Puccinis career
o Unlike La Bohme, everyone hates it (not just the critics!)
o Why hated? Actual conspiracy theory Puccini employed by Recordi (big Italian
publishing house)
o People being paid to hate it (nothing to do with reality)
o Evidence that he may have believed that there was something wrong with it
o Italians starting to get sick of Puccini: not representing Italian themes (can see why
people would be angry at this with MB)
- Two really new ideas about what went wrong: wasnt personal or financial:
- Political Problem: 12 days before the opera was premiered a war between Russia and
Japan broke out (big issue in Europe)
o Surely anyone in Europe would react badly depending on if there was a war going on
with Japan or not
o The fact of this war between Japan and Russia undermines many of the
characterisations in the opera: Japan attacked unprovoked Russians (Japan the
aggressor, not passive like in the opera)
o First war where Japan (Eastern country) was using up to date Western tech
Behaving as if a Western Colonial Power
Complex treaties
Fact of this happening = bigger problem than anything else
- What are immigrants in Europe?
o Change in how people viewed relationships between culture:
Italian American immigrants, identifying with Cho Cho Siangs character
o 100000 Italians leaving each year for N/S America
Massive emigration
Any Italian would know someone who had moved
What wasgoing on that made them want to leave
Rubbish times fitting in to American culture: Italian and Irish immigrants
HUGE problems for Americans (criminals, dangerous, huge threat etc)
MB wants to be an American woman, not rich, powerful just the American
Dream (middle class American) which is what Italians wanted too. When MB
wants to fit in with a new society, these sentiments were shared by millions of
Italians, didnt want their views to be put in the voice of a Japanese woman:
their emotional experience shouldnt be the same as hers
Provocative about MB is not that its about Japanese people but about
Italians experience of the world
- Basic question: Why does this opera create controversy/why does it continue to speak to
people both positively and negatively today?
o Not just about exoticism, also about immigration and assimilation
Despite its attempt to make the West seem totally different from the East,
also creates the idea of trying to fit in to a new culture and the struggle
involved with this
The real myth of MB is not just going an sleeping about in exotic countries,
but the desire to be accepted by a different culture

Is Butterfly therefore the richer character?

Is Japan being presented as a better country?

Opera from Pinkerton or MB perspective?

Beautiful famous aria of MB?
o Musical style:
Eastern influences? Very small inflections?
Not stereotypical pentatonic any other Puccini aria (Puccinis standard
mode!)
If this music does sound like generic Puccini aria music?
Parting from the East? Text is about her new life in America so the
music reflects this?
o Leads to a more problematic point: can assimilate music start
sounding Western musically rather than Eastern: assimilation is
possible? Makes this aria really about assimilation? DOES get
to travel to this musical style?
o Generic?
o MB failure to assimilate? Missing the point? Not individual
enough? Whole thing that makes the second act painful to
watch is that there is a woman who thinks she is an American
wife when in fact everyone knows that she is not.
o Whether this is sincere or not both of these interpretations show
that music is not the fixed character of one
o Still the property of these other characters? Aria can be
interpreted I a lot of different ways.
Fantasy whole relationship based on her fantasy: this aria could be about babies, and
washing machines, but its a fantasy of a man coming from the distance and calling out her
name:
o The same thing as she did to Pinkerton in the first place: role reversal
o Perspective is shifting, being in Butteflys perspective now, as Pinkerton becomes
the erotic model.
o She makes him wait, now he is making her wait (but she still wont go to him)