[Jaded Mandarin]

Last night I went to see Oz Opera's regional touring production of Puccini's "Madame Butterfly". It was performed in English, with the setting updated to 1946.... there weren't any howlers in the English lyrics which ranged from adequate to brilliant, the overall staging was eye-catching without overwhelming the audience with spectacle and the performers played their parts with both technical virtuosity and great emotional commitment.... however, I found it disappointing that there was not one single Asian among the lot of them.

I am listening to the Complete Recording of "Miss Saigon" as I type this post... and I wonder what everyone on this board thinks of "Miss Saigon" when looking at it as an adaptation of "Madame Butterfly".

It strikes me that from a storytelling standpoint, there are some considerable improvements and drawbacks both...

In every production of "Butterfly" I've seen, the character of Pinkerton comes across as an arrogant fop from the get-go, he's just using Butterfly for sex and then he tosses her aside once he has had his fun. In the production I saw, the actor played Pinkerton as such a cad that the audience was booing him when he showed up onstage in the second act - it didn't help matters that when it came time for Pinkerton's soul searching 2nd act number, the actor played the song as "oh what a terrible inconvenience for me" rather than "oh I feel so bad about what I've done".

Basically, Butterfly came across as being incredibly dense to have any faith in this twit. I kept wanting to shake her and scream out "WAKE UP WOMAN!!! THIS MAN IS A PRATT!!! HE DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU!!!"

I've heard it argued that the biggest weakness of "Miss Saigon" is the characterisation of Chris. Admittedly, the changes to the character do sentimentalise the story a great deal - Chris genuinely loves Kim and is forced to abandon her when Saigon falls... and he is wracked with guilt and remorse over his actions in the second act, a broken man.
All of these changes make the character into a much more blandly conventional romantic lead, sure...

However, I find Kim's faith in Chris to be a lot less annoying than Butterfly's faith in Pinkerton. Since Chris has basically been portrayed as a gentle and kindhearted (though foolish and weak willed) young man, Kim doesn't come across as being a complete idiot for believing in Chris.

The expansion of Kate's character I do consider to be one of the strengths of "Miss Saigon" - Kate is barely in "Madame Butterfly" and doesn't really get enough stage time to make an impression one way or the other.... I found that Ellen emerges as a profoundly sympathetic character in "Miss Saigon", despite her status as an obstacle to the star crossed lovers at the heart of the show.

I guess where I differ from most fans is in my view of Goro/The Engineer. Whereas I found the expansion of Kate as Ellen lent the character some much needed depth, the expansion of Goro as The Engineer often seemed indulgent to me.

I'm thinking of "The American Dream" here... it's a fun song and everything, but it doesn't tell me anything about the character that I don't already know and it holds up the main storyline.

Generally speaking, I can understand why there was such controversy surrounding this character when "Miss Saigon" first came out. I don't think that as written The Engineer crosses the line into caricature, but he never seemed to grow beyond being a mere stereotype for me (albeit a highly amusing stereotype)... having a white actor play this character I can only imagine made it worse.

I've adored Jonathan Pryce in other things ("Brazil" is one of my all time fave movies) but he never sold me on being Eurasian. He played the emotions of the character very well, but because of his anglo-ness I was always conscious of an actor playing a role. This might sound shallow, but whenever I've seen The Engineer played by someone who is actually of Asian descent then I find it a lot easier to believe in the character.

And then there's the ending....

I think both endings work within the context of how the rest of the story is conceived, and the changes to the ending in "Miss Saigon" are appropriate considering how the rest of the relationship dynamics and the time period have also been changed.

Hmmmm....

I haven't gone into the music... comparing Puccini's style to Schoenberg's is comparing apples to oranges methinks, and probably wouldn't do justice to either composer.

What do you guys think of "Miss Saigon" when compared to "Madame Butterfly"? What do you think of the changes made to the story and the characters? How effective or ineffective are they in your view? What are your preferences?

[Vanessa20]

I don't know if I'm the best person to respond, since I've barely listened to "Miss Saigon" for the last few years, but I love "Madame Butterfly"- it was one of the first operas I ever saw and I have enormous sentimental attachment to it. In fact, I just got back about an hour ago from watching the telecast Frank Corsaro's New York City Opera production of "Butterfly" at the Paley Media Center.

I agree with everything you say about the whole Kim/Chris situation vs. the Butterfly/Pinkerton situation. But you have to keep in mind that "Butterfly was written at a time when stories about innocent girls victimized by cads were popular, and the fact that she was Japanese only made the whole thing more romantic by the standards of the day. Both as a woman and as an exotic "other," her blind, self-obliterating devotion to a totally unworthy Western man would probably have been (and often still is) considered beautiful, touching and maybe even admirable.

(One of the most interesting things about the opera is that it both seems to protest that view of foreign women as "pretty little playthings" and promote it at the same time. The whole intricate East/West relationship that the opera depicts is something that opera scholars and stage directors could probably spend weeks discussing and arguing over.)

Besides, Pinkerton is fairly open to interpretation. I've heard a few people (tenors and otherwise) argue that he really was in love with Butterfly, but that the whole cultural situation made him not act on it or even realize it until it was too late. Nor does every tenor play "Addio, fiorito asil" as "oh what a terrible inconvenience for me." In the telecast I just watched, Jerry Hadley (RIP ) played Pinkerton as genuinely completely distraught, and they staged the ending in a way I'd never seen before. At the very last moment, instead of just staying prostrate over Butterfly's body, he turned around and picked up the little boy in his arms: a hint of hope, I thought, that he was changed by the tragedy and would do his best for his son.

BTW, has anyone here read the original book and play of "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long and David Belasco, respectively? Honestly, if Puccini hadn't written the opera, there would be no "Miss Saigon." The "Butterfly" story would not be famous today. The original Long/Belasco Butterfly is more pathetic than tragic; she speaks in horrible, politically incorrect broken English (e.g. "You the mos' bes' nize man in all the whole worl'") and comes across as so stupid that she makes Puccini's Butterfly look like a rocket scientist. I know they didn't intend to be racist, but still, it kind of makes you cringe to read it. The opera gives her the stature and dignity of a real tragic heroine, which I think is central to its success.

[jackrussell]

Jaded Mandarin is right - the characterisation of Chris is a strength, not a weakness. It is plausible that Kim should love him as he's foolish and weak but not evil. It also makes for a more sophisticated political metaphor for America's involvement in Vietnam (or elsewhere) - many Americans genuinely believed that they were doing the right thing, but the results were catastrophic. Much more dramatically satisfying than "look at those bad evil Americans" would have been.

It's not overly sentimental, either - I don't for one moment believe that having got out of Vietnam, Chris tried very hard (whatever he may say in the show to make himself feel better) to find Kim. He didn't want to lose her, but once he had, it was far more convenient for him to marry a nice girl at home and try to settle down. The nightmares are surely a sign of a guilty conscience.

[Vanessa20]

[kozafluitmusique]

Wait, I'm embarrassed.

And don't forget about M. Butterfly

[Jennifer Lynn]

I'm just coming off seeing a production of Butterfly in Philly...

One interesting thing about the original novella by John Luther Long is that Butterfly (and you're right about that pidgin English) DOESN'T commit suicide. She ends up aborting the suicide when she realizes her child needs her, and when Mrs. Pinkerton shows up at the house she finds it empty, so Pinkerton DOESN'T get the kid. The suicide doesn't come about until the Long/Belasco play, which Puccini saw and ran with, despite not knowing a word of English.

But I've thought for a while that Pinkerton might not necessarily be an irredeemable cad. It's mentioned in both the short story and the stage play that these temporary "marriages" of soldiers and geishas are commonplace. Girls in dire financial straits often entered these marriages for the money it would bring them. In the story "Madame Chrysanthemum," which was sort of the ancestor to the Butterfly story, the narrator turns back when he is about to leave, and sees Chrysanthemum checking the coins he gave her to see if they're good. In fact, the stage play version of Butterfly has Pinkerton saying, "For a few weeks after we sailed, I was dotty in love with her...I almost turned back from boarding the ship, but a little voice in my head said, 'Don't do it...by this point she's testing your gold coins to see if they're real. You know that class of Japanese girl."

Now, maybe it's a racist assumption on his part, but keep in mind that this was a common practice. So isn't it possible that Pinkerton simply thought that Butterfly was just like all the other geisha girls in these "marriages", in it for the money and putting on an act of being devoted and loving? How could he have known that he got the one geisha in Japan who really believed in the whole thing and WASN'T playacting her devotion? With other examples before him, is it that callous that he laughs off Sharpless' concerns? In the opera, he writes, "Perhaps Butterfly no longer remembers me," and is shocked when he finds she HAS remembered him for three years.

And I do like the idea of Pinkerton being played as if he'll find some redemption through his son.

BTW, Mandarin, considering that the story takes place in Nagasaki, how on earth did they update that production to 1946?

[Vanessa20]

I agree with all of the above, though I do think Pinkerton is very unlikeable in Long's original story. He's less bad in Belasco's play, and I think the opera's characterization is somewhere in between.

It's useful to read Long and Belasco to have a deeper understanding of the opera. All the same, I wouldn't draw too much on them if I ever directed a production. I still think the opera improves on them both, mainly because as I said, it gives Butterfly the stature and dignity of a real tragic heroine, not just a pathetic one.

[Mademoiselle Lanoire]

What's so difficult about 1946? If you were to change the time period from the original Edwardian setting, post-WWII would be an extremely logical choice.

[Jennifer Lynn]

I meant the fact that Nagasaki was leveled by an atomic bomb in 1945 might have made it a little hard to be a setting in 1946. (I may be wrong...I don't know how far along rebuilding got in a year.)