SFO: New Perspective Muddles Opera Narrative

Last night San Francisco Opera (SFO) opened its 2023 Summer Season with a new staging of an old favorite, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The production is being shared by the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation, Semperoper Dresden, and The Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen. The production was conceived by Amon Miyamoto and was staged here in San Francisco by Miroku Shimada, both making their respective SFO debuts. The conductor was Music Director Eun Sun Kim, and the Chorus Director was John Keene.

The “title” role of Cio-Cio-San was sung by soprano Karah Son, making her SFO debut. Tenor Michael Fabiano returned to San Francisco to sing the role of Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton. The other major roles were that of Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San’s servant, sung by mezzo Hyona Kim, and Sharpless, the American Consul, sung by baritone Lucas Meachem.

The adult Trouble (John Charles Quimpo) observes himself as a child (Viva Young Maguire) with his mother Cio-Cio-San (Karah Son) (courtesy of SFO)

The concept behind Miyamoto’s staging involved framing the familiar narrative of the opera within a future in which Pinkerton is now dying. The family gathered around his bed includes Trouble, the child conceived by Cio-Cio-San on her first night of “wedded bliss” with Pinkerton. That role of this adult Trouble was mimed by John Charles Quimpo, also making his SFO debut, while the mimed role of the child was performed by Viva Young Maguire. Quimpo is on the stage for pretty much the entire opera, suggesting that it is only when he is a mature adult that he discovers the truth of his ancestry.

As operas go, this production of Madama Butterfly was relatively brief, clocking in at less than three hours, even with Trouble’s added backstory. Nevertheless, too much of the production felt as if it would go on forever. Puccini’s score still proceeded at a brisk pace; but most of the mimed interjections took place in silence, often impeding the flow established by the music. By the time the narrative advances to the crisis moment of the third act (Cio-Cio-San’s suicide), an attentive viewer could probably be forgiven for succumbing to fatigue.

Presumably, Miyamoto wanted to present that suicide as a parallel to the death of Pinkerton in his old age. Had Miyamoto shown more efficiency with the preceding mimed episodes, the attentive viewer might have appreciated that parallelism. However, where “clock time” was concerned, fatigue was setting in long before the final operatic episode with Cio-Cio-San and Trouble. One could appreciate that Miyamoto’s concepts looked good in paper, but they could not align successfully with the “opera time” established by Puccini’s score.