Above: soprano Ermonela Jaho
~ Author: Oberon
Saturday March 3rd, 2018 matinee - This afternoon's performance of MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the Metropolitan Opera played to a packed house. It's an opera that always manages to get to me, however often I've seen and heard it. New to me today was the Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho; her vocally fascinating performance was genuinely intriguing, especially in view of the fact that her voice is on the light side for such a taxing role in the big House. But Ms. Jaho knows her way around this music, and - supported by a strong line-up of colleagues - this made for a truly satisfying performance.
I like the Minghella production for the most part - despite the puppet - but I didn't feel the need for a seat with a view today. Conductor Marco Armiliato has this music in his blood - though he sometimes covered the singers - and the orchestra played extremely well, with many really beautiful moments.
Ms. Jaho, whose timbre is a bit like Pilar Lorengar's, at first sounded under-powered. But her phrasing and sense of youthful anticipation were spot on, so as she moved thru the entry aria, things began to bloom. The voice sits high: she finished "Spira sul mare" with a fine, sustained high D-flat. The soprano then commenced to draw me in and play on my heartstrings with one exquisite phrase after another.
"Ieri son salita..." had lovely delicacy, and the gentle resignation of "Rinegata...e felice!" was a sublimely done. As the love duet unfolded, Ms. Jaho's delicious mixing in of piano/pianissimo notes kept giving me chills of delight. Her singing of "Vogliatemi bene..." was so moving in its plea for love, and her "...un bene da bambino" ravished. The soprano plucked stunning, silvery top notes out of the air, as at "...in man del'uom!" A sense of rapture built with her "Dolce notte...quante stelle!" followed by spectacular softness at "...quant'occhi fisi attente..." So many felicitous details in her singing! I genuinely hated being dragged back to reality following the Act I curtain today; I could not wait for the second act to begin.
In the scene leading up to "Un bel di", Ms. Jaho was achingly touching with her sweet recollections of her brief time with Pinkerton: "O Butterfly...piccina moglietina..." and "...quando fa la nidiata..." were sublimely nuanced. "Un bel di" was intimately sung, so alive with verbal detail aligned you vocal colour. The final expression of hope and steadfastness was crowned by a crystalline high B-flat.
After rejecting Yamadori - her final life-line - Ms. Jaho's Butterfly was spellbinding in the Letter Scene with Sharpless. Her hushed reply to the letter's assumption that she would have forgotten Pinkerton ("Suzuki, dillo tu...") was sung with a tender hush. She is numbed by the Consul's suggestion that she forget Pinkerton, and lashes out violently at "Ah...m'ha scordata!!", crying out in pain. She then brings forth Pinkerton's son, and the story spirals to its tragic denouement.
"Che tua madre..." was simply crushing as a devastatingly personal reflection on what Butterfly would do as an abandoned wife and mother: the soft fear in Jaho's voice at "...la geisha cantera." Gleaming tops as she moved on to the despairing cries of "Morta! Morta!" Bidding farewell to the Consul, she describes the baby's name "...Gioia mi chiamerò!" with a sustained pianissimo fading into air.
Now comes the agonizing sighting of the ship - a stunning A-sharp on "...Abramo Lincoln!!..." and the brief triumph of her faith, "...sol io che l'amo!" before the cresting, shining ascent on "Ei torna, e m'ama!"
Ms. Jaho's singing of the Flower Duet, finely blended with Maria Zifchak's Suzuki, was sweet and silvery, with a shimmering B-flat at "...petali d'ogn fior..." In the quiet monolog that follows, the soprano's expressive and very personal singing, full of detail, was mesmerizing. The atmospheric Humming Chorus with its enchanting harp was a final passage of peace before Butterfly's world collapses.
In Act III, Ms. Jaho's exquisite "Dormi amor mio..." marked her last moments of hope. Then comes the betrayal, the brutal truth: great tension as she made dramatic use of her lower range, asking Suzuki if Pinkerton is still alive. Overwhelming sadness as she contemplates her fate and the surrender of her son. Chilling pauses sustain the dramatic atmosphere before the bleakly poignant "Sotto il gran ponte del cielo..."
Powerfully, Butterfly dismisses Suzuki, and in a numbed voice of tragic accents Ms. Jaho reads the inscription on the knife blade: "To die with honor when one can no longer live with honor..." In the crushing agony of her final moments, Ms. Jaho's searing cry of "Amore...addio...addio, piccolo amor!" demolished me completely.
In Roberto Aronica (Pinkerton) and Roberto Frontali (Sharpless), strong and wonderfully idiomatic vocalism carried the day. During their exchanges in Act I, the two Italians delighted in the words, and neither was daunted in the least by the volume that rose at times from the pit.
Mr. Aronica lets the music flow; it's a big sound which rises vibrantly to the upper notes. One might have thought him mismatched to Ms. Jaho's lighter sound in the love duet, but Mr. Aronica sang lyrically here, turning up the volume when a solo moment came his way. The sweet urging of his "...ancor non m'hai detto che m'ami!" gave way to the reassurance that "...love doesn't kill!..." (There he's wrong, as it turns out.) As the duet moved to its climax, the tenor's increasing rapture buoyed the soprano's soaring gleam.
In Act III, the Aronica's singing in both the great trio (my favorite passage in the entire opera) and in the heartrending remorse of "Addio, fiorito asil" was generous and moving.
It's silly and juvenile, though, that audiences tend to boo mean or nasty characters when they take their bows. The opera's over: if the singer has done a good job, what's the point of booing?
Mr. Frontali was an excellent Sharpless, one of the most touching roles created by Puccini for male singer. Sharpless foresees disaster, but once it happens he is helpless to stem the destructive tide. Mr. Frontali's rich tone and very expressive way with the words made his every phrase important. In Act I his launching of the beautiful "O amico fortunato...!" was superb, as was his prophetic "Badate! Ella ci crede!" ("Be careful! She believes in you!")
In Act II, Mr. Frontali and Ms. Jaho made the Letter Scene the key element of the opera that it should be. The baritone's sudden impatience with Butterfly's steadfastness erupts at ("Ebbene, che fareste, Madama Butterfly...s'ei non dovesse ritornar più mai?"): the last words, thundered out, were shocking: I've never heard it done that way. Frontali's goodbye to Butterfly's son was another cause for heartache.
In that great Act III trio, all is made clear. Sharpless's prophecy was accurate, Pinkerton too late recognizes his tragic thoughtlessness, and Suzuki is left to deal with the damage, knowing the path Butterfly will take. Maria Zifchak is the Met's go-to Suzuki, and she turned in yet another very fine performance of the role today. With magnificent support from the orchestra, these three singers produced a vocal buildup of passion, regret, and despair made a thrilling impact.
The opera's smaller roles were all done well today. Tony Stevenson was a more musical Goro than some, putting emphasis on the notes rather than on the 'character' aspects of the marriage broker's music. Stefan Szkafarowsky was a dramatic Bonze, and I enjoyed hearing baritone Hyung Yun again: he sang handsomely as Yamadori. If only Butterfly had accepted Yamadori's proposal! Paul Corona (Commissioner) and Edyta Kulczak (Kate Pinkerton, the 'innocent cause' of Butterfly's tragedy) both did well.
Her extremely moving performance today made me wonder why Ms. Jaho has not sung at The Met with greater frequency: aside from a single Violetta in 2008, these Butterflies are her only Met appearances to date. The audience seemed truly taken with her this afternoon, and I especially loved her warm embrace of Ms. Zifchak during the curtain calls.
Overall, the afternoon left me emotionally exhausted, and that's exactly what an operatic performance should do.
Metropolitan Opera House
March 3, 2018 matinee
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Giacomo Puccini
Cio-Cio-San.............Ermonela Jaho
Pinkerton...............Roberto Aronica
Suzuki..................Maria Zifchak
Sharpless...............Roberto Frontali
Goro....................Tony Stevenson
Bonze...................Stefan Szkafarowsky
Yamadori................Hyung Yun
Kate Pinkerton..........Edyta Kulczak
Commissioner............Paul Corona
Yakuside................Craig Montgomery
Mother..................Belinda Oswald
Aunt....................Jean Braham
Cousin..................Patricia Steiner
Registrar...............Juhwan Lee
Dancer..................Hsin-Ping Chang
Dancer..................Andrew Robinson
Cio-Cio-San's Child
(Puppet)................Kevin Augustine, Tom Lee, Marc Petrosino
Conductor...............Marco Armiliato
~ Oberon