It’s a dramatic masterpiece and a key component of any opera house’s core repertory – but Madama Butterfly was also a product of its time, riddled with stereotypes and racist depictions of Asian people.
So what does it mean to stage Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 classic in 2022? That’s the question the Royal Opera House set out to answer when it launched a year-long consultation on how to better respect Japanese culture in its production.
“Rather than cancelling the whole show, the Royal Opera House wanted to be in dialogue with it,” said Sonoko Kamimura, an expert in Japanese movement who has been working on the revival, opening to audiences on 14 June.
Puccini’s story of Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese girl who falls in love with American naval officer Pinkerton – with devastating consequences – has captivated audiences for more than a century and remains one of the most popular Italian operas. It has been performed by the Royal Opera 416 times, making it the ninth-most performed work in the company’s repertoire.
The ROH’s latest revival will be performed by two casts, including Lianna Haroutounian and Eri Nakamura in the role of Cio-Cio-San, and Kseniia Nikolaieva and Patricia Bardon in the role of Suzuki, while Dan Ettinger will conduct.
The consultation involved Covent Garden staff, academics, practitioners, performers and Asian representatives and led to changes to several aspects of the existing staging – including the use of movement and choreography.
“When I begin working on a production there is always a lot to consider: how the costumes will restrict the performer, and how the work can best reflect the world it is depicting,” Kamimura said.
“For this production, we focused on refining posture and adjusting placement in particular – making sure, for instance, that Suzuki’s left hand always settles on top of her right; or that Cio-Cio-San’s gestures reflect the character’s upbringing. By making tiny changes to the ways in which singers express their emotions through music, we can create something more authentic – less prone to stereotypes, and more attuned to the historical context of the story.”
The new show revives Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 production, and has been put together with the help of Kamimura and other movement experts, including Etsuko Handa and June Iyeda, who worked alongside revival director Dan Dooner.
According to Kamimura, the stereotypical “Japanese” movement often found in European and North American performances of Madama Butterfly often goes hand in hand with costume and makeup. “It’s about being attuned to the historical contact and avoiding ‘Japanese’ tropes, which are incorrect and are offensive,” she said.
The Royal Opera House said its productions, performers and creative teams had a role in defining the future of opera, including which stories were told, how they were interpreted and who got to make them.
“There is more that can – and must – be done to ensure the broadest range of artists can benefit from opportunities on our stages, but the company look forward to building on the progress already made, working with partners and industry experts to ensure barriers to entry are knocked down, and colour-conscious casting is firmly embedded at the heart of the organisation.”
Oliver Mears, the director of the Royal Opera, who led the consultation, said he wanted to “interrogate the depiction of Japanese culture in the staging of this work and involve Japanese practitioners and academics to help us work towards a Butterfly both true to the spirit of the original, and authentic in its representation of Japan”.
Other classic operas that have been revised for modern audiences
Otello by Verdi – White singers cast as the lead in Verdi’s take on the classic Shakespeare play would traditionally “black up” for the role. But the move has been rejected in recent years. Keith Warner, who directed Otello at the Royal Opera House, said: “It’s about the audience making an imaginative leap … On top of all that, [blacking up] is of such offence to the black community in London and elsewhere.”
Turandot by Puccini – The opera about a barbaric Chinese princess in “ancient Peking” is full of racist tropes. A production at the Canadian Opera Company changed the names of Ping, Pang and Pong, the three main characters, to Jim, Bob and Bill, and swapped their Chinese costumes for black suits, but – wrote the daughter of one of the tenors – the characters “continued to play into stereotypes of effeminate Asian men as they pranced around on stage, giggling at one another”.
Carmen by Bizet – After more than 140 years of being stabbed to death on stage, the heroine of Bizet’s opera got her own revenge in a new Italian production by shooting her lover instead. The head of Florence’s Teatro del Maggio Musicale Foundation, Cristiano Chiarot, said in 2018: “At a time when our society is having to confront the murder of women, how can we dare to applaud the killing of a woman?”
The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart – Mozart’s comedy about two European women who are kidnapped and sold to a Turkish Muslim plays into a number of Muslim stereotypes. When the Canadian Opera Company revised it, writer and director Wajdi Mouawad said it was not difficult to see the opera might appear “as an exercise in caricature, or casual racism”. The English Touring Opera also sidestepped “the awkward racial baggage”.
