“MADAME BUTTERFLY” AS AN OPERA.--A PROPOSAL BY LADY VALERIE MEUX.
Puccini’s opera, entitled “Madama Butterfly,” was first performed in New York, in an English version, under the management of Henry Savage, at the Garden Theatre, November 12, 1906. Elza Szamosy, an Hungarian, sang _Cio-Cio-San_; Harriet Behne _Suzuki_; Joseph F. Sheehan _Pinkerton_, and Winifred Goff _Mr. Sharpless_. The first performance of it in Italian occurred in New York, at the Metropolitan Opera House, February 11, 1907, when,--with its composer among the audience--it was sung by the following cast:
_Cio-Cio-San_ Geraldine Farrar. _Suzuki_ Louise Homer. _Kate, Mrs. Pinkerton_ Laura Mapleson. _La Madre_ Josephine Jacoby. _La Cugina_ ---- Shearman. _La Zia_ ---- Moran. _Lieutenant Pinkerton_ Enrico Caruso. _Mr. Sharpless_ Antonio Scotti. _Goro_ Albert Reiss. _Yamadori_ ---- Paroli. _Lo Zio Bonzo_ Adolf Mühlmann. _Yakuside_ Giulio Rossi. _Il Commissario Imperiale_ ---- Bégué. _Un Ufficiale del Registro_ Francesco Navarini.
Referring to the production of this opera at the Metropolitan, Belasco writes: “I loaned my models [for the scenery] and sent over my electricians.”--I have not heard Puccini’s music. My old friend and colleague Henry Edward Krehbiel has written of it:
“ ... Genuine Japanese tunes come to the surface of the instrumental flood at intervals and tunes which copy their characteristics of rhythm, melody, and color. As a rule this is a dangerous proceeding except in comedy which aims to chastise the foibles and follies of a people and a period. Nothing is more admirable, however, than Signor
Photograph by Aime Dupont. Belasco’s Collection.
GERALDINE FARRAR AS _CHI-CHI-SAN_, IN PUCCINI’S OPERA, “MADAMA BUTTERFLY,” BASED ON BELASCO’S TRAGEDY]
Puccini’s use of it to heighten the dramatic climaxes; the merry tune with which _Cio-Cio-San_ diverts her child in the Second Act and the use of a bald native tune thundered out _fortissimo_ in naked unison with the periodic punctuations of harmony at the close are striking cases in point. Nor should the local color in the delineation of the break of day in the beginning of the Third Act and the charmingly felicitous use of mellifluous songs in the Marriage Scene be overlooked. Always the effect is musical and dramatically helpful. As for the rest there are many moments of a strange charm in the score, music filled with a haunting tenderness and poetic loveliness, music in which there is a beautiful meeting of the external picture and the spiritual content of the scene. Notable among these moments is the scene in which _Butterfly_ and her attendant scatter flowers throughout the room in expectation of _Pinkerton’s_ return. Here melodies and harmonies are exhaled like the odors of the flowers.”