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.

PUCCINI'S MANON LESCAUT / Singapore Lyric Opera / Review

 

PUCCINI’S MANON LESCAUT

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Theatre

Friday (31 August 2012)

 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 September 2012 with the title "Outstanding opera deserves more audiences".

 

First things first, for congratulations is due to Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) for producing a Puccini opera that is not La Boheme, Tosca, Madam Butterfly or Turandot. Manon Lescaut, Puccini’s third opera and first outright hit, is part of the standard repertory but has never been staged in Singapore. It does not boast of the hit arias that made Puccini so popular, but it nonetheless possesses the drama, sumptuous music with a touch of Wagner, and the characters to make it memorable.

 

For a first production of something unfamiliar, SLO pooled its strongest resources together to make it one of its best productions to date. Director E. Loren Meeker chose to update the tragedy to the modern day without the gimmickry that usually accompanies such attempts. All the singers were dressed in Orchard Road day clothes, which made the verismo cautionary tale of confused woman-child Manon Lescaut, torn between virtue and vice, all the more topical given the ongoing underage sex scandal occupying local tabloids today.  

 

Singaporean soprano Yee Ee-Ping’s elevation to status of prima donna in the titular role was an unqualified triumph. Not only does she have the vocal apparatus and pulmonary capacity to pull it off musically, her acting with a panoply of facial expressions and bodily feints was totally believable; even sympathetic, despite being blinded by bling.

 

Opposite her, Korean tenor Lee Jae Wook as student-in-love Des Grieux was up to his usual heroics. He nailed his aria Donna Non Vidi Mai with much earnest zest, and their duets together were easily the opera’s high points. The supporting cast led by Andrew Fernando (Manon’s brother), William Lim (Geronte) and Melvin Tan (Edmondo) were excellent for fleshing out the action and drama.

 

The musical theatre moved between seriousness and plain silliness so naturally, which will become a hallmark of Puccini. Witness the comical Dancing Master scene, with tenor Lemuel de la Cruz totally hamming up the gay role without so many words, before transitioning into pure sobriety as if with a flick of a switch.

 

Set designer Christopher Chua’s work was stark and effective, especially in the bleak Fourth Act in the arid Louisiana desert. The blood-red backdrop served to represent undying love and the scorching wilderness, and as the sun set on the affair of Manon and Des Grieux, a pall of grey descended agonisingly like a guillotine’s blade. The final duet was exactly as it was depicted - a slow and painful death.       

 

The SLO Orchestra led by conductor Joshua Kangming Tan gave one of its best showings in a highly detailed score, the poignantly moving Intermezzo leading into Act Three was enthusiastically applauded. The marvellous chorus, augmented by 17 Filipino vocal talents (where would Singapore opera be without them?), also lent their collective weight to the proceedings.

 

On a worrying note, this third opera to be staged in Singapore within six weeks, was greeted with many empty seats on opening night. With Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore and John Sharpley’s Fences also playing to small houses, one ponders the future for classical opera in Singapore.

 

There are two more shows of Manon Lescaut on Monday and Tuesday. The quality and effort of all the artists involved should not go unrewarded. 

 



PUCCINI'S LA BOHEME by Singapore Lyric Opera / Review

PUCCINI La Bohème
Singapore Lyric Opera
Esplanade Theatre
Friday (29 January 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 February 2010.

No matter how many times one encounters Puccini’s verismo opera La Bohème, it never fails to engage the emotions and senses. The story, its characters and Puccini’s music all contribute to “making it stick”. The Singapore Lyric Opera’s third production of the veritable tear-jerker had most if not all the ingredients for a memorable 5-evening run.

Director Andrew Sinclair brought the setting a century ahead to Paris of the Depression years. The Bohemians’ garret, simply but splendidly designed by Priscil Poh, sported steel girders with rivets and was suitably grubby. Even the outdoor Café Momus scene allowed a vista of the Eiffel Tower in the background.

The plot of youth, poverty, love and loss however remained eternal and universal. Central to this was soprano Nancy Yuen’s (left) sympathetic Mimi. She has lost none of her youthful ardour and vocal purity over the years, totally capable of portraying a role half her age convincingly. Her distinctive timbre has become almost synonymous with Singapore opera itself.

Opposite her was Kota Murakami (left) as Rodolfo whose pleasant and bright tone was complementary, even if it was not the biggest on the tenement block. That belonged to Song Kee Chang’s angst-filled Marcello who was the glue that united the principal cast. His paramour Musetta, sung by Kristin Symes, had great physical presence as a Marilyn Monroe look-alike but limited by a miniscule voice in her Waltz Aria.

Singaporeans William Lim and Martin Ng sand their respective parts as the landlord cum sugar daddy and Colline with credit, with the latter having a shining moment in the “Overcoat” Aria of Act Four. An animated Brent Allcock as Schaunard completed the male foursome that bubbled with close camaraderie.

There were many musical highpoints. The love duet of Act One and the chorus-crowd scenes of Act Two that threatened to spill out over the stage were among them. However Act Three with the lovers reunited at the Barrier Gate held the most poignancy, reflected against the violent parting of Marcello and Musetta that resembled scenes from The Godfather.

The SLO Orchestra conducted by Wang Ya-Hui (left, incidentally the first woman to conduct an SLO production) supported marvelously with concertmaster Seah Huan Yuh’s violin solos a particular pleasure. If only the surtitles were this well coordinated; the sudden and heartbreaking entrance of a pale and ashen-faced Mimi in the final act was spoilt by the surtitles coming on too soon.

That the Singapore Lyric Opera has been able to mount a production of this quality on a shoestring budget is itself a remarkable achievement. Its future productions - The Magic Flute and Salomé – look very inviting indeed.

PUCCINI'S LA BOHEME: An opera to die for?

Here's a little piece I wrote for the Singapore Lyric Opera's

programme booklet for its production of Puccini's La Bohème.

(Click on image to enlarge)