Lyric Opera 2019-2020 Issue 8 Madama Butterfly

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 29 see the artifice – even while, as an actress, Martínez shows her respectful grasp of Japanese styles of movement, discussed in her program article also published here. Another, and more serious, “cultural appropriation” charge is that white Western artists typically demean other cultures by showing them as childish and morally bad, often using negative cultural stereotypes. It’s hard to make this charge stick to Butterfly , a profoundly anti-American and anti-colonialist opera. The shallowness, rapacity, and Yankee solipsism of Pinkerton (“America forever”) make him one of opera’s most unattractive tenor “heroes,” and this is clearly Puccini’s goal. Indeed, he gave Pinkerton a mildly sympathetic aria of his own, in Act Three, only late in the revision process, after tenors refused the role. The opera does contain a critique of samurai culture, but it is drawn from Japanese scholarship and has had the approval of serious students of the period. Obviously any artist who ventures to depict a culture that has often been stigmatized and marginalized runs a moral risk. But great art is full of such risks, and even deeply flawed artists sometimes succeed beyond their daily selves – as Tolstoy, whose real-life views of women and sex were full of objectionable stereotypes, created, in Anna Karenina, a complex female character who captivates the imaginations of both women and men. If, then, the “cultural appropriation” charge means that only a Japanese woman (say) should be permitted to portray the experiences and feelings of a Japanese woman, this charge makes two related errors. First, it assumes that we know ourselves, and speak adequately for our own “group.” Surely this is false: we are often blinkered about ourselves, and learn a great deal from the perspective of another. Second, it appears to assume that we may never understand what a different type of person feels or thinks. Well, of course, we never achieve complete understanding of any human life, including, and especially, our own. But the attempt to do so, with strenuous exercise of imagination and emotion, is a vital basis for good citizenship in a plural society. Dramatic art requires such bold attempts, on the part of both author and performer. What particularly needs to be avoided is failure to make the attempt seriously, strenuously, with deep engagement with the full and bottomless humanity of the “other.” Many Western portrayals of Asia and Africa have been lazy and crude, full of demeaning stereotypes, and that is the right target of criticism. Does Butterfly make an attempt to understand a human being that is deep and serious, or does it treat this Japanese woman as a mere object of audience condescension, rather than as a full human being – for example, by buying into the demeaning stereotype of the Asian woman as childish and deferential? My own verdict on Butterfly is that there is some use of “local color” that does invite a mostly white and western audience to assume a detached and merely touristic attitude to Japan, seeing its customs as quaint. One might possibly object to that, as well as to the atmospheric use of stereotypical musical gestures in some early scenes. But the critique doesn’t fit the core of the work, for at its heart the opera is a story of love and devotion. And it depicts a young Japanese woman One of the few photos of Giacomo Puccini (left) with librettists Giuseppe Giacosa (center) and Luigi Illica (right). as a vitally strong heroine deserving of our most passionate respect and our curious sympathy. If seeing heroism in another culture is deemed a vice, we’d better abandon all prospect for mutual understanding and reciprocity in this world of difference. But is Butterfly actually heroic? Surely she is a young victim of sexual exploitation. She even compares herself to a butterfly immobilized with a pin. So isn’t the opera asking audiences to become accomplices in her sexualized humiliation? So, at least, goes a criticism of Puccini eloquently made by philosopher Bernard Williams. His critique does fit some surface aspects of the work: she is described as only fifteen, and she is indeed taken advantage of by both the marriage-broker Goro and Pinkerton. And indeed Belasco’s play does depict her as a mere child, without intelligence or initiative, speaking a ridiculous pidgin. However, as we gradually see, Puccini’s opera depicts this Cio-Cio-San as a strong and intelligent woman, and she displays increasing strength throughout the opera. She chooses: to leave her family for Pinkerton and his religion; to face down their criticism; to reject Yamadori and other potential suitors. In the deleted scene in the consulate she even shows great knowledge of the law! Nor does Puccini’s music depict Cio-Cio-San as a frail or flighty person: indeed it is a role requiring great vocal strength and maturity. And in the love duet, where she does mention the butterfly image, Cio-Cio-San already emerges, musically, as very far from a passive victim: she is fully and actively involved in the reciprocal gift of self; indeed at some points, musically, she takes the lead.