Madam Butterfly

Published Monday 7 November 2005 at 16:35 by David Blewitt

The wildly enthusiastic first-night reception of ENO’s new Butterfly confirms a palpable hit for the company. It is probably the most sheerly beautiful staging I have ever encountered.

Peter Mumford’s expressive, subtly evocative lighting is both prescient messenger of Butterfly’s fate and chronicler of the emotionally charged subtext. Michael Levine’s moving screens allow action to flow; his wide, rear up-curving floor space enables Anthony Minghella and Carolyn Choa to compose ravishing, emblematic stage pictures.

Deftly handled Bunraku puppets represent Butterfly’s household, her child Sorrow, and the teenage geisha herself in a thought sequence accompanying the waiting Intermezzo (Act II, Part 2).

In a recent Radio 4 interview, Anthony Minghella seemed to define his directing role as non-interventionist. Certainly, the treatment of the main protagonists is conventional, the odd telling detail excepted.

It is the exceptional cast which provides any genuine insights: Alan Oke’s Goro, the professional marriage-broker, Jean Rigby’s concerned, warm-hearted and loyal Suzuki. Christopher Purves limns a sympathetic Sharpless. Sadly, the wooden Pinkerton belting out the music remains a total cipher.

Mary Plazas’ Butterfly is extraordinary, the tiny figure disturbingly highlighting the story’s more perverse aspects. She judges superbly the delicate balance between resolve and vulnerability, never plays victim. Vocally, she husbands her resources skilfully never to compromise the power of the ‘spinto’ vocal lines.

However the highly stylized, albeit ravishing, staging renders Butterfly a mere puppet, her exquisitely choreographed death exemplifying the triumph of image over emotion. It is as visually stunning as it is unmoving. David Parry conducts efficiently.