BUTTERFLY'S DREAM / The Opera Pot / Review

 

BUTTERFLY’S DREAM 

The Opera Pot 

Black Box @ 

Stamford Arts Centre 

Sunday (28 April 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 April 2024 with the title "The Opera Pot takes flight with adaptation of Madama Butterfly."

Given the sad state of government funding for grand opera in Singapore, big opulent spectacles have been hard to come by. Even the national flagship Singapore Lyric Opera has had to scale down its major productions. 

One sole consolation for opera lovers is the increased activity of little opera companies, the latest newcomer being The Opera Pot, part of The Creative Sync arts company. Its maiden voyage was Butterfly’s Dream, a chamber-sized retelling of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly through stage and cinema. 

Directed by Mah Su-Yin, the opera’s original two-and-a-half hours involving ten soloists, chorus and orchestra was readapted for just four singers accompanied by piano. Its modern setting is 1950s Nagasaki, during the post-war American occupation of Japan, when a teenaged geisha is married off to an American naval officer. Short-lived passion gives way to long-term fateful consequences. 

Running for 90 minutes without intermission, the clever selection of key moments of musical theatre pared away the luxuries but retained critical factors that made for good story-telling. Its compactness enhanced rather than detracted from the drama. This production was, however, a creative coup in other respects. 

Chief of these was the singing in Italian, with soprano Wendy Woon helming the titular character Cio-Cio San, whose pitiful plight of love lost and duty abandoned was totally identifiable. Her passionate hit aria Un bel di left one wondering if her unshaken faith was a case of misplaced innocence or pure delusion, or both. 

Opposite her was Malaysian tenor Alan Lau as the feckless Lieutenant Pinkerton, whose smarminess was immediately apparent by trodding on tatami without first taking off his shoes. Their love duet together, Viene La Sera / Vogliatemi Bene, was the stuff for raising goosebumps. Unlike most Pinkertons, his final regret was palpable, evoking sympathy rather than contempt. 

Photo: Ken Ang

The other singers were Australian baritone Greg McCreanor as a confident but cautious Consul Sharpless and Japanese mezzo-soprano Chieko Trevatt as kimono-wearing maid-servant Suzuki, the latter being the best of four actors on stage. Although she had a few lines to sing, her non-verbal cues more than encompassed the unfolding tragedy. 

The absence of an orchestra was rendered moot by Vincent Chen Wei Jie’s musical direction on piano, who was a towering presence in support. The simple yet effective set comprised a central low table, ikebana set and clock backed by six screens. The narrative from the viewpoint of Suzuki was aided by mostly black-and-white film projections which were visually stunning. 

The death of Butterfly.

Excellent lighting design by Debbie Tan Zi-Yang aided the noir setting pursued in the direction, which was unobtrusive but easily taken for granted. Butterfly’s final act of seppuku (no stabbing but a violent flick of a fan) was represented by the stage symbolically bathed in blood red hues. 

Judging by this success of a debut, one cannot wait for what The Opera Pot cooks up next.