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Tragic tale beautifully told
Madame
Butterfly
Wolverhampton Grand Theatre *****
Under the excellent direction of Ellen Kent, The Ukranian National Opera
of Kharkiv's production of, what is perhaps, Puccini's best-loved opera
is overwhelmingly, exquisitely beautiful and painfully tragic.
There
never was going to be a happy ending and I was enthralled from the first
note; lost in the magic of the orchestra lead by conductor Vitalii
Kutsenko, the breathtaking performances, wonderful, traditional costumes
and clever set. It is refreshing not to have
to imagine that the hero and heroine are young, attractive and vibrant
because - they just are. Korean-born soprano, Elena Dee
plays the delicate, youthful Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) and is the
absolute star; her exquisite voice often moved me to tears.
Handsome, Ruslan Zinevych is the ever-smiling, American naval officer
Lieutenant FB Pinkerton who takes advantage of a young girl's lowly
position, her love and the dubious Japanese laws. He marries her to satiate his
desire (or could it be love?) until such time as he finds a proper
American wife. The child bride forsakes her family for the dashing
officer. She tells him she is disowned but happy. The
sexual tension and rising passions are tangible as Dee and Zinevych
display their superb acting skills in a long, moving duet as the wedding
night approaches
The whole performance takes
place in one set and designer Nadezhda Shvets captures perfectly the
land of lotus and cherry blossom. Centre stage, set high in the hills
overlooking the bay of Nagasaki, is the paper house for which Pinkerton
has a contract of 999 years (renewable on a monthly basis, if that
suits). He has a similar arrangement
with his new wife the beautiful, delicate Butterfly, but she isn't
aware, and he abandons her not knowing that she carries his child. Act 2 sees the return of the
errant Pinkerton. Everywhere there must be flowers and the smell of
spring and we are treated to a superb, joyful Flower Duet from the
ever-attentive, Suzuki (Viktoriia Zhytkova) and Butterfly. He still doesn't arrive and
with the transition from night to day comes the haunting Humming Chorus.
Great use of lighting gives us the silhouette of the two women and the
child as they undertake the tortured vigil throughout the night waiting
for Butterfly's beloved Pinkerton. He arrives with the dawn, but
with his new wife, to take away their blond, blue-eyed child of their
union, Sorrow. The pain of losing them both is too much for
Butterfly to bear and for me too and she takes her own life. There are excellent
performances from Ievgenii Lysytskyi, Sergiy Ledenov, Andriy Kalyuzhniy
and Roman Tkachenko. The performance is sung in
Italian with English with surtitles and closed to a very well deserved
standing ovation by many. Wonderful. 17-10-11 Lynda Ford And another view from the hills above the harbour . . . LEADING opera producer Ellen Kent
unearthed a diamond when she discovered young Korean singer Elena Dee
and flew her to the UK for an audition. Now the beautiful soprano is a star with the
talented Ukrainian company, and her performance as Cio-Cio-San (Madam
Butterfly) at the Grand was memorable. Dee sang superbly and drew every ounce of emotion
from the role of the 15-year-old Japanese girl who falls deeply in love
with a dashing American naval lieutenant but faces heartbreak when he
cruelly sails out of her life. Returning to Nagasaki on board his warship
three years later, he has an American wife in tow, to the anguish of
Butterfly. The gripping scene in which the audience saw the
silhouettes of Cio-Cio-San, her son, and servant Suzuki (Viktoriia
Zhytkova) through the sliding door of her home as they waited in hope
through the night, was gripping. Good to see young opera singers whose ages appear
to resemble those of the characters they are playing. Ruslan Zinevych
proved the ideal partner for Dee, perfectly portraying Pinkerton's
casual early attitude to the love affair, and later his despair at the
tragic outcome. I have only seen one better performance of
Madam Butterfly than this - in the round at the NIA a few years ago. After one performance of this Puccini
tear-jerker, the company complete their visit with La Traviata, .on
Tuesday Paul Marston
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