We are no longer talking about the emotional density of Madama Butterfly , Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), to discuss the encounter between two worlds, the Japanese and the US, which look strangely there staged or “simply stunning libretto” written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
Maxine Braham, a stage director of production that opens Tuesday at 20h, the season Lyric of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos (seven presentations by 1 November), sitting on a terrace in the namesake off the house founded in 1793, says the building that returned for the fourth time now, states: “[Opera] is a vehicle for the human heart. Go to the room to be agreed, to awaken parts of us who were asleep. It is deeply important to the human psyche lose ourselves while at the same time, we find ourselves. It is deeply important to the psychological health of a culture have the theater. And the opera has a sense of intense theater, total. Not only is the word, is the music, the singing, movement, design, lights. It is an impressive format and encompasses all the arts. “
Hours later testify, so the test that the PUBLIC saw this opera that tells the story of a romance between a young geisha, Cio-Cio San, the Madama Butterfly, and Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, navy officer who consciously espouses that leave in Nagasaki to marry a “real American woman” – and Butterfly does not know and will refuse to believe so be it
On the stage of São Carlos runs the test. On stage, Madama Butterfly (south soprano Korean Hye-Youn Lee) and man because of their hope in love and its unbearable despair, the American Pinkerton that shall marry and leave then (the Spanish tenor Antonio Gandia).
They and the house on top of a hill Nagasaki , minimalist setting, elegant and moldable, and the port suggested downstairs while we see the mountains on the screen behind her.
The chorus (the São Carlos), collective body, the wedding scene, look carefully to distinguish the faces and voices that compose it. The ongoing attempt to be a bridge for dialogue and reasonableness by Sharpless, the American consul (Luis Rodrigues), the Happy Dance of Butterfly and her faithful Suzuki (Katie Moreso), the second of the three acts making up the opera, throwing petals rose throughout the house.
That’s the drama that will unfold inevitably, in the end, with the orchestra to emphasize the whole scene tension, the same orchestra, directed by the Italian Domenico Longo, going through two worlds masterfully among Americans memoranda accompanying Pinkerton (the American anthem, Star Spangled banner is recurring presence) and Japanese melodies that Puccini, it is said, will have collected in the early twentieth century together the wife of the Japanese ambassador in Rome.
“I think Puccini chose this story [created from a short story by John Luther Long, Madame Butterfly , and the novel Madame Chrysantheme , Pierre Loti], in addition to being a fabulous story, as a vehicle that allows us a lot of life experience, “says Maxine Braham. “The hope that many of us have had, or have, at some point in your life, that romantic love can prevail a lifetime. And the destruction of that dream, an experience of neglect and betrayal at a very deep level. “
The former dancer, who as stage director and choreographer and artistic director, added his name to productions of Carmen , Dream of a Summer Night , Billy Budd or Don Juan , in addition, of course, collaboration in the original production , signed by Tim Albery, this Madama Butterfly that now comes to San Carlos, looked at work with choir, soloists and orchestra, “get to the emotional truth of this work.” That’s what allows an absolute classic operatic repertoire, represented hundreds of times and seen and heard by millions of people, keep alive their ability to reach the viewer as if to accompany the story for the first time.
“I love revisiting works because it allows you to add new layers. It’s a fabulous lasagna that is becoming richer. ” Praising the libretto, “has naturally has truth and is concise,” it states that the right way to approach a work of this artistic dimension and iconic passes the obvious: “We have to address the music and dig it, listening all the layers and trying to understand what he felt and what he wanted when Puccini composed. This will then connect to what is our life and what we are right now. “
It will never be the same, because we ourselves are not the same as life progresses, as they are not the bodies and voices that give life characters. Certain things, however, do not change. “In the letter scene, the Puccini orchestration gives us, in short bars between short sentences exchanged, the thoughts of the singers in the form of music, so that they can absorb them, identify the operated emotional transformation and let it turn the interpretation, “explains Maxine Graham. “Having this kind of detail on the composition and encourage the singers to wear it, they realize what Puccini heard and as composed as well, is absolutely brilliant”, considers.
In addition to achieving what we set as the “emotional truth” of this opera, was instrumental in the stage director working the “physicality” of singers. Madama Butterfly is a tragic story of unrequited love that unfolds under the backdrop of a meeting of civilizations, the US and Japan, separated by a world of difference. And that, says Maxine Braham, “needs to be felt and expressed visually”, “The Japanese world, with its minimalist and delicate hand; Pinkerton and the American world with its cultural arrogance and commit all gaffes imaginable, and Sharpless, who can see both worlds and desperately trying to moderate the behavior of that elephant in a china shop. ”
Madama Butterfly opens in San Carlos lyrical season 2015/2016 planned by guest programmer Patrick Dickie closely with Joana Carneiro, conductor holder of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Giovanni Andreoli, conductor holder of the choir and João Paulo Santos, musical stage director and musical theater studies.
Premiered at La Scala in a mythical night February 1904, “the favorite Puccini opera,” as in Maxine Braham, or “Puccini immersed in itself,” as Maxine music director Domenico Longo, come to Portugal, São Carlos, just four years later.
By then, the great composer Italian, after the disastrous premiere violently whistled and pateada, proceeded to adjustments that have made her the overwhelming and continued success that holds up to the present day (it is, along with the Tosca and L Bohéme , also by Puccini, in the list of 10 most displayed opera world outside).
The aria Un bel di, vedremo will continue to be “extraordinary, probably the most famous soprano aria from the repertoire.” Maxine will continue to thrill with the “long wait” which closes the second act and listening, rapt, a “short clarinet fragment whistled between one orchestral juggernaut” that marks part of the response to the letter. The impact of that song in the house at the top of the hill in Nagasaki which unfolds this “Japanese tragedy in three acts,” will remain over time. And will continue to be a little different than it was before. Change and it changes us.
“Puccini was a genius and a work of such depth [as Madama Butterfly ], I know the revisit in ten years and will continue to find new things. It would be different if it were more modest in intent, if not contained so much from so universal. Not the case. Rediscover it always results in a rich harvest. “
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