The Faber Pocket Guide to Opera (49 page)

What to listen for

Tosca is a role that falls awkwardly between the domains of the lyric and dramatic soprano: Act I and ‘Vissi d’arte’ in Act II are written for a warm, lyric voice, whereas the scenes with Scarpia in Act II call for dramatic declamation and some loud, exposed high Cs above a heavy orchestra.
‘Vissi d’arte’ falls in the middle of the latter, and singers often find themselves too tired to do justice to its calmer, long-breathed legato.
Cavaradossi is in contrast a gratifyingly easy role for a tenor, with lyric arias at the beginning of Acts I and III, and only Act II’s audience-rousing cries of ‘Vittoria!
Vittoria!’ (sung as he
hears of Napoleon’s victory at Marengo) in between.
Scarpia is also a gift to a bass-baritone with the right baleful presence.
The trouble often comes from conductors who let the orchestra rip, pushing the singers to bellow and take unmusical extra breaths in order to increase volume.

In performance

The classic
Tosca
production is that directed by Franco Zeffirelli, originally produced for Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi in 1964 at Covent Garden – a splendid spectacle, with ‘realistic’ representations of the interior of Sant’ Andrea della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese and the Castel Sant’ Angelo, as well as plenty of dramatic exits and entrances.
Jonathan Miller’s updating of the opera to Fascist Italy of the early 1940s (a production first seen in Florence) didn’t work as well as one might have anticipated.
Elsewhere, directors such as Nikolaus Lehnhoff (in Amsterdam) have striven for a more expressionistic approach to the piece, emphasizing its brutal and sadistic sexuality.
On the latter note, it is important that Scarpia emerges as more magnetic and domineering than the clean-cut romantic Cavaradossi – Act II becomes much more exciting if there is a sense that Tosca is unconsciously righting against her attraction to him.
And Tosca should convey that the woman is not only a prima donna, in all senses of the term, but also a resourceful peasant who knows how to make a bargain and when to break a vow.

There is no more popular operatic myth than the one about the fat prima donna playing Tosca who leaps from the parapet and then bounces back into the audience’s view from the waiting trampoline or mattress below.
Making this climax convincing is certainly a problem for the singer and director, but no firm evidence of any Tosca reapppearing in this manner has ever been cited.

Recordings

CD: Maria Callas (Tosca); Tito Gobbi (Scarpia); Victor de Sabata (cond.).
EMI 47 175 8

Angela Gheorghiu (Tosca); Ruggero Raimondi (Scarpia); Antonio Pappano (cond.).
EMI 557 173 2

Madama
Butterfly

Two (or three) acts. First performed Milan, 1904.

Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa

Based on a play by David Belasco, in turn dramatized from a short story based on an actual incident involving a Scottish whisky importer named Glover, whose geisha bride committed hara-kiri when he abandoned her.
Puccini first saw Belasco’s play performed in English in London, and without understanding a word of it, instantly saw its operatic potential.
The first performance was a disaster, however, and Puccini withdrew the score to make substantial alterations.
The revised version – with Pinkerton’s character softened and less space given to the comedy of Butterfly’s relations in Act I – was instantly a huge success and the opera went on to be one of the most admired and influential of the early twentieth century.
Puccini continued to tinker with the score, and the resulting variants account for small differences that those familiar with the opera may note between various productions.

Plot

Nagasaki, in the mid-nineteenth century.
Goro the marriage broker arranges for the visiting American naval lieutenant Pinkerton to marry the beautiful fifteen-year-old geisha Cio-Cio-San, nobly born but now orphaned and impoverished, known as Madama Butterfly.
The American consul Sharpless counsels caution: he is worried that Butterfly has renounced her religion in preparation for life as an American wife, whereas Pinkerton is clearly an easy-going fellow who will not take the marriage seriously.
The wedding goes ahead, interrupted by Butterfly’s uncle who curses Butterfly for betraying her religion and her roots.
The couple are finally
left alone: Butterfly is shy and doubting, until Pinkerton reassures her with expressions of his ardour and loyalty.

Three years later, and Pinkerton is long gone, leaving Butterfly with a little son known as Trouble.
Butterfly still clings to a belief that Pinkerton will honour a promise to come back to her and refuses an offer of marriage from the wealthy and eligible Prince Yamadori.
Her servant Suzuki is appalled, not least as money is fast running out.
Sharpless has heard that Pinkerton is about to return – with his new American wife.
He starts to tell Butterfly, who is so overjoyed by the first part of the news that Sharpless cannot bear to continue and let her know the whole truth.
A cannon in the harbour announces the docking of Pinkerton’s ship.
Butterfly and Suzuki decorate the house with flowers in his honour and sit up all night waiting for his arrival.

Next morning, as a disappointed and exhausted Butterfly sleeps, Pinkerton appears with his wife Kate and Sharpless.
Pinkerton tells Suzuki that he has come to take his son back to America.
He is, however, stricken with remorse, and cannot face confronting Butterfly in person.
When the situation is explained to her, Butterfly reacts with dignity, wishes the new Mrs Pinkerton well and asks the visitors to leave her alone for half an hour; Pinkerton may then have his son.
Butterfly then commits hara-kiri, expiring just as Pinkerton returns.

What to listen for

Butterfly is one of the most coveted roles in the Italian soprano’s repertoire, not least as she is seldom off-stage and the tenor has such a thoroughly subsidiary part to play!
There are difficulties, however.
Although the role requires enormous stamina and a note of steely determination, it also needs fragility, pathos and charm – a combination which among recent prima donnas, only Renata Scotto has filled to perfection.
Another problem is that Butterfly’s entrance is an enormous hurdle – before the singer has had a chance to warm up, Puccini prescribes high-lying phrases, mostly marked piano,
with an optional high D flat which few are brave enough to dare.
The famous aria ‘Un bel dì’ in Act II is in fact one of the easier passages, demonstrating Puccini’s ability to extract maximum emotional impact from minimal vocal effort; much trickier is the gentle lullaby at the beginning of the second scene of Act II – long phrases and a floated high B being required at a point at which energies are usually flagging.

Pinkerton is not a nice fellow and tenors don’t much enjoy playing him: to soften his character, Puccini gave him an aria of remorse in the second scene of Act II, ‘Addio, fiorito asil’, when he revised the opera.
Some critics feel that it does not ring true, and weakens the drama.
Sharpless (baritone) and Suzuki (one of Puccini’s few roles for mezzo-soprano) are much more sympathetic, but neither of them is given an aria.
Other highlights include the rapturous Act I love duet (Puccini’s longest); the overwhelming orchestral outburst as Butterfly reveals the existence of her son Trouble to Sharpless; and Butterfly’s ‘flower’ duet with Suzuki, which gives way to the humming chorus and an impassioned orchestral intermezzo which allows the soprano a few minutes to recover herself.

Puccini uses some half-dozen authentic Japanese melodies in the score, accompanied by standard orchestral instruments in strange combinations (harp, piccolo, flute and bells, for instance) and some whole-tone harmonic scales to provide pseudo-oriental colour.
In contrast, note the quotation of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in Act I.
This is a far more subtly coloured and harmonized score than either
Tosca
or
La
Bohème,
and ranks as one of Puccini’s masterpieces.

In performance

Pity the poor Asian soprano forced to sing the title role over and over again, throughout her career, whatever her vocal capacities.
Still, Cio-Cio-San is one of the great soprano roles in the Italian repertory, especially now we have grown out of conceiving of Butterfly as a twee, giggling and fan-fluttering ickle-girl and can appreciate a young woman’s courage, dignity and
strength of character.
Good productions, such as those of Graham Vick at ENO and David McVicar for Scottish Opera will also convey a proper sense of the delicate politics of interracial marriage against a background of Yankee colonialism (for instance, Butterfly is often shown as dressing in western style following her marriage).
Two matters open to interpretation are the degree to which Butterfly can be regarded as mentally disturbed in her obsessive determination and belief in Pinkerton’s return, and the degree to which Pinkerton truly loves Butterfly when he marries her.
Some stagings have introduced elements of classical Nõh and Kabuki vocabulary, but such stylization does not sit happily on either the naturalistic story-line or the overwhelming emotional impact of Puccini’s music.