Madame Butterfly -- San Francisco Opera Performance -- Review La Traviata -- San Francisco Opera Performance Review Palo Alto -- Film Review

Madame Butterfly

San Francisco Opera Performance

June 21, 2014

There are two ways of looking at this opera, and one of them makes sense and the other one doesn't.  However the presentation favors the nonsense interpretation.  It's the difference between a story from the Bible seen as a metaphor that has a moral lesson or a symbolic meaning, and taking it literally as a retelling of historical events.  Most of the time the literalist understanding is flawed and sometimes reduces to nonsense, but the moral message could still resonate and be comprehensible whether you agree with it or not.  Such is the case with Madame Butterfly. 

This opera has some sophistication, in contrast to La Traviata, which I saw last night and dispatched to the ashcan.  Madame Butterfly is beautifully and imaginatively presented.  A special accolade should go to the production designer, Jun Kaneko.  His skillful use of lighting and special effects as well as colorful, attractive costumes created a marvelous visual spectacle.  The singers really put their hearts into this.  From the point of view of the performance and the staging it was truly world class. 

It is the concept and interpretation of this opera that I have a problem with.  Lieutenant Pinkerton married Butterfly in Japan while he was there on assignment with the U.S. Navy.  Pinkerton is straightforwardly dishonest from the outset.  Even as he sets about to marry Butterfly, he explicitly states his anticipation of a "real wedding" with an American girl.  He does not take the Japanese girl or the wedding seriously and is quite frank about it.  So one might ask, "why is he doing this?"  Why does he need to marry Butterfly?  He could have her, or many other girls, on a short term basis for probably far less money than he paid to marry her.  Why is he saddling himself with a marriage in a foreign country that he does not take seriously, when he doesn't really need to?  His behavior just doesn't make sense. 

They get married and the girl is crazy about him. By all measures she is highly motivated and devoted to him, and he seems pleased with her.  She wants to go to America and be his wife.  She renounces her religion, she wholeheartedly embraces American culture and the American way of life.  So why not keep her?  What more could a guy want in a wife?  Why not take her along when he leaves?  Why does he leave this wonderful young Japanese girl behind, when he just went to the trouble and expense to marry her?  It is left unexplained why he left Butterfly behind in Japan in the first place.  If he never wanted to keep her to begin with, it did not make sense to marry her. 

Furthermore, Butterfly is a geisha.  Geishas were not prostitutes in the sense that we understand them.  They were entertainers, they were well trained for their role from an early age, and quite sophisticated.  They had social skills and acute perception of men and their needs.  But Butterfly is presented as an immature numbskull who lives in a cotton candy world of fantasy and self delusion -- very unlike a geisha.  So Butterfly's character lacks credibility from very early on.  She does not seem like a Japanese woman at all.  Pinkerton's behavior also lacks credibility from the very beginning and throughout.  So I watched this whole opera in a state of profound skepticism about both of the lead characters. 

So Pinkerton leaves and Butterfly stays in Japan.  He is gone three years.  During that three years' time, he meets, courts, and marries and American woman whom he brings with him on his return to Japan. 

Question:  At what point does Mrs. American Pinkerton find out about Mrs. Japanese Pinkerton? 

Case 1:  Pinkerton tells her about his Japanese marriage before he marries her. 

"Darling, I want to marry you.  But I think I should tell you something." 

"Sure, baby, what is it?"

"I'm already married."

"You mean to another woman?"

"Right.  I married a Japanese woman in Japan less than three years ago.  But now I'm going to dump her and marry you."

"That's great." 

"So let's go ahead and get married."

"Sure, why not?  Oh, I'm so thrilled that you would dump another woman that you had just married and marry me!  I must be so powerfully appealing to you!"

"You are, indeed.  And there's something else."

"Oh?"

"I have a two year old son with my Japanese wife."

"Really?"

"I want to go back to Japan with you in tow so you can meet my Japanese wife, I'm going to tell her I'm dumping her for you, and then we're going to wrench my young son away from her and bring him home with us so that you can raise him as your own son."

"Nothing could make me happier.  I'll start packing."

"Now I know why I married you."

If that doesn't seem real enough to you, then consider Case 2:  Mrs. American Pinkerton finds out about Mrs. Japanese Pinkerton after she is married to him.  

Pinkerton courts her, proposes to her, and marries her without ever mentioning that he has another wife already in Japan.  They get married and the morning after their wedding they are having breakfast.  She serves him his pancakes and he says to her,

"Honey, I need to tell you something."

"Sure, baby, you know you can tell me anything. I'm your beloved wife."

"I'm already married, Sweetheart.  I have another wife."

"Well, what about it?"

"I married her in Japan less than three years ago.  But I like you better.  I'm going to dump her and keep you instead."

"I'm very touched." 

"There's something else."

"Don't hold it back.  Share it with me, baby.  You know I'll always be there for you."

"I have a two year old son with her."

"Big deal."

"I want to go back to Japan.  I want you to go with me and meet my Japanese wife.  I'm going to let her know I'm dumping her once and for all, and we are going to take my son away from her and bring him back with us for you to raise as your own son."

"That sounds awesome." 

"I'm glad you are so understanding."

"Our love will conquer all, darling."

I think either alternative is equally plausible.  But then, once we have the new Mrs. Pinkerton in Japan and the first Mrs. Pinkerton is enlightened as to what is going down, she is faced with several alternatives.  She could return to being a geisha, which would not be all that bad.  The production in its ignorance portrays this as "dishonorable," but that is a very un-Japanese attitude.  In Japan geisha were, and still are for the few that are left, highly regarded.  The second alternative would have been to marry the wealthy Japanese man, Yamadori, who was very interested in her and wanted her.  That, of course, could have been a plus or a minus, you can never tell.  And the third alternative was to give up her child without an argument and kill herself, which is what she chose -- totally ridiculous folly.  Why does she so willingly give up her child to this strange woman who shows up one day on her doorstep with the man she married just a few years ago?  She says that she must obey her husband and hand over the boy.  Why would she feel like she must obey a foreign man who deceived her, betrayed her, and now shows up with the woman he is dumping her for demanding the child that they had together.  Butterfly is not credible as a woman. 

This is why I have concluded that looking at this opera as a story of interpersonal tragedy reduces it to total absurdity.  The presenting story simply lacks credibility.  But there is another way of looking at it that has much more plausibility.  If one looks at the story metaphorically, then it really does begin to make some sense. 

This is the story of the rape of Japan by the western powers in the nineteenth century, and the United States in particular.  It is the story of ruthless colonial exploitation and the Japanese struggle to come to terms with it.  The United States did not send its warships into Japanese harbors in the nineteenth century as a gesture of friendship.  The object was to open it up to colonial exploitation as had happened to China and other Southeast Asian nations.  There was a great struggle in Japan over how to deal with this.  One strain of thinking was that Japan needed to modernize, to adopt western technology and culture or it would be inevitably subjugated.  But there was also resistance to this.  Many Japanese became enamored with western culture and fascinated with the United States.  To be sure Japan was a repressive, feudal society.  Westernization with its traditions of civil liberties and individual rights had a lot to offer ordinary Japanese.  This opera offers a verdict on that infatuation with the West and its likely outcome for the Japanese. 

Butterfly should be seen as the simpleminded, superficial, trend in Japan to naively embrace western culture, values, religion, etc.  Butterfly represents the foolishness of this course and the disappointment and disaster it will inevitably lead to.  Taking the child away from Butterfly represents the younger generation of Japanese turning away from traditional Japanese values and culture and being wholeheartedly given over to westernization.  Butterfly's embrace of all things Western is the instrument whereby the children are given away to the West -- they follow her example.  Butterfly's suicide should be understood as the outcome of that ill-considered embrace: the self-destruction of the Japanese as Japanese.  It is a much more profound tragedy than this preposterous love story that is only a facade.  This opera has promise and could be a great production if it could be directed to emphasize this clash of cultures and this imposition of imperial power upon Japan, rather than as a sorrowful tale of love gone wrong between two people who are both unconvincing on their own terms. 

I think the opera makes this metaphorical intent very clear in the name of the American Lieutenant, "Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton," and his ship's name, the "Abraham Lincoln."  He is clearly representing America, the historical power and cultural bellwether, and not just himself as a person.  His callous reprehensible behavior reflects the attitude of the American government toward Japan and serves as a warning to Japanese people enthused in their naive embrace of American culture.  This issue remains in play even today in Japan. 

The problem with this opera is that it emphasizes the personal tragedy, which is kind of silly, really, and subordinates the symbolic clash between the intrusion of western imperial power and the relatively backward, technologically inferior Japan.  The story really does not work if it is conceived as a personal story of love and betrayal between two people.  But that is the way it seems to come out in the performance.  I don't know if it could be directed and staged differently to bring out a more macroscopic interpretation, or if it is just badly written and can't be fixed.  This story has to be seen symbolically, as a story of grand conflict between two civilizations of very different character. 

I was surprised to see the director Nicola Luisotti make the remark in the program notes that "prostitution was illegal in Japan" (p.43) during the time of this story (the early 1900s).  Could it be that this man who says he has directed this opera 70 times, including twice in Japan, is so brazenly ignorant of its historical context?  Japan has had a thriving sex industry from time immemorial.¹  Maybe it was a misprint in the program.  Prostitution was legal pretty much everywhere in the United States and everywhere else in the world around the time of this opera's conception (very early 20th century).  It was only over the course of the first two decades of the twentieth century that commercial sex was suppressed in the United States.  In Japan prostitution continues to thrive, although the influence of the United States after World War 2, and pressure from Christian groups has steadily eroded the public acceptance it once enjoyed. (Bornoff, 1991, p. 331)  If Luisotti really thinks that prostitution was illegal in nineteenth century Japan, then he has no concept of this country at the time in which this opera is set.  

The second act was excessively long and most of the time was spent simply waiting for Pinkerton to return to Japan.  Waiting for something to happen is not dramatically effective except for a short time to raise tension and expectancy.  If waiting becomes the dominant theme in a performance, it devolves into something akin to watching clothes tumble in a dryer.  Unless there is something else going on, waiting has to be kept within reasonable proportions.  In this opera there is nothing dramatic going on except the introduction of "Sorrow," the toddler who is the son of Pinkerton and Butterfly.  He does take over the second act to a large extent.  That three year old boy, Miles Sperske, deserves a special award of merit for his demanding role.  He was on stage for most of the second act during which he was required to sit patiently, motionless, and silent in the midst of continuous ongoing drama and stimulation.  It was quite an achievement for a young toddler. 

While this opera was staged and sung at a very high level of quality, it is a deeply flawed opera that is not well thought out and shows ignorance of Japanese culture and character.  It does at the same time present a telling lesson to the Japanese and to all nations and peoples around the world who thrall to America's culture and its political and economic agenda.  Butterfly's outcome could be you.  Think of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Latin America, etc.  There are some universal themes here that it would pay to heed.  It would be a much better production if it emphasized those larger themes rather than this ill-conceived love story, which I don't think was ever the primary intent of this opera. 

1.  Bornoff, Nicholas (1991)  Pink Samurai:  Love, Marriage and Sex in Contemporary Japan.  New York, London:  Pocket Books.  See especially Chapter 11.  

La Traviata

San Francisco Opera Performance

June 20, 2014

I think I am going to quit going to the opera.  It is an artform that I seem to dislike.  I seldom warm to these performances.  I am unimpressed with the composers, that is, as purveyors of ideas about life, values, and commentary on society and human relations.  They seem mediocre, superficial and hopelessly conservative.  I don't usually like the music very much either, except for Wagner. 

La Traviata is, I would say, the worst opera I've seen.  It could have been written by a Catholic priest.  It drips with contempt and hatred for women from beginning to end.  It is unrelenting.  I am surprised that women's groups are not picketing the opera house.  It is hypocritical and maudlin.  I felt a great revulsion watching it and thought about leaving after the first act, but I wanted to review it, so I stuck it out.  But it was punishment.  It was not an enjoyable evening at all. 

Verdi is clearly writing about a character he knows nothing about.  No experienced courtesan would be a sucker for a delusional idiot like Alberto.  Nor would an experienced courtesan allow herself to be bullied by an arrogant, pompous jerk like Alberto's father.  A courtesan would seduce him, charm him, disarm him.  Violetta never even tried that.  It never occurred to her, but it is instinctive in women who habitually relate to men on a sexual level in their daily experience.  Violetta is a totally unconvincing character from the beginning all the way to her long, drawn out death, and the plot seems contrived and ad hoc, with abrupt turn-arounds in the characters and their attitudes toward one other, none of which make any real sense.  

In Act II Violetta has apparently succumbed to Alfredo's childish, naive proposal offered in Act I, and they are living together in the country and apparently getting along well.  Violetta is supporting him in a reversal of her customary role, but they are running out of money living far beyond their means.  It is a very unlikely scenario for an experienced sex worker to get herself into.  It is only three months after Act I, not exactly a well tested love, although it is represented as an epic romance for the ages.   Violetta is then approached by Giorgio, her lover's father, who seeks to sabotage his son's relationship by persuading the (former) courtesan to give him up.  But why?  So that his (Giorgio's) younger daughter -- a girl of supposedly impeccable purity and innocence -- can get married to some asshole who is putting off the wedding  because he thinks Alfredo's involvement with Violetta is tarnishing his image.   Does anybody else out there see how ridiculous this is?  And Violetta, after a melodramatic struggle, falls for it, and accedes to Giorgio's demands, without even consulting Alfredo.  Very few women would be cowed by an approach of this sort, let alone an experienced courtesan who knows how to manipulate and subdue men.  I should have gotten up and walked out and set an example for how people should respond to this instead of writing this review that no one will read. 

The notes and other commentary on this opera try to spin Violetta as setting a noble example of love as self sacrifice.  She is sacrificing the love of her life, at the behest of his father, to enable an allegedly pure young girl, obviously superior to her, whom she does not even know, to marry a total jerk, whom she also doesn't know.  The only thing she knows about the man that she is giving up the love of her life for is that he is so contemptuous of her that he would deny himself a marriage to a girl who meets his qualifications of purity and innocence on account of Violetta's relationship with the girl's brother, which has nothing to do with them.  And so Violetta says, "OK, I see your point.  I'll dump my lover whom I am crazy about, so you can come down off your high horse and marry this little bitch who has fooled you into thinking she is so innocent and pure."  It is beyond absurd.  It insults the audience and despises every woman in the auditorium. 

The third act could probably be eliminated.  It does not contribute anything to the main story line.  Its only purpose seems to be to heap more contempt and degradation on Violetta.  It confirms Alfredo as a hapless, deluded, naive sucker.  It just underlines Verdi's contempt for all of these people, who are only cardboard characters anyway.  The fourth act is a long, drawn out, dreary, dismal death agony.  At times sentimental, at times self pitying, it's enough to make you sick.  It felt like it would never end.  I was so glad when Violetta finally died.  The third and fourth acts probably could have been condensed down to about fifteen minutes instead of the almost hour and a half that they interminably ran. 

The program said that La Traviata is the most often performed opera in the world.  If La Traviata is the world's most often performed opera, what does that say about the abysmal condition of this artform?  What does it say about the sickness and confusion over sexual relations within our society that people would support and applaud something so blatantly hypocritical and so trenchant in its contempt for women?  It reflects how bleak and  impoverished we must be in our personal relationships.  It is really appalling that the audience would sit there through that entire awful second act between Giorgio and Violetta and not one person was laughing, hooting, booing, catcalling, or hissing.  No one threw any garbage at the stage.  What is wrong with these people? 

During the first intermission they left the curtain up and Production Director George Weber narrated the set change for the audience, explaining how the sets are built, stored, and changed between acts, which was a very interesting presentation -- more interesting than the opera itself.  During the course of this presentation it was mentioned that it takes 290 people to stage this opera, including the cast, the orchestra, the stage hands, and everyone else connected with it, and costs between $1 million and $5 million.  If that much effort and expense is going to be put forth to produce an opera to be viewed by the public, then it should be a production that is not so insipid and cartoonish in its conceptualization and does not insult the audience and display such naked contempt for the women of society.  This opera should never be performed again.  It is a cesspool of confusion and hypocrisy.  I curse it.  It is not fit for modern people. 

Palo Alto

Directed by Gia Coppola

This film reminded me of the 1985 novel Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis.  It is a similar tale of cultural and psychological disintegration in the youth of the white American upper middle class.  I would judge it good, with some reservations.  The characters are generally well drawn and memorable.  Very distinctive personalities amid a vivid rendering of this superficial, pained, directionless, clueless, youth culture where nobody seems to be able to relate to one another in a constructive way and everyone self-medicates their loneliness and inner turmoil with alcohol and drugs.  I wonder how people who live in Palo Alto regard this film?  These are your children, Palo Alto, do you recognize them?  The film offers nothing in the way of analysis or understanding.  It just presents things the way they are -- or at least as the filmmakers see them.  This probably does reflect the reality of many American young people in the white middle class.  But there are probably also many kids who are never exposed to this kind of cultural, social, psychological, moral, and spiritual  decadence.  If the film is representative, then it means things have not gotten any better since Bret Easton Ellis published Less Than Zero twenty years ago. 

I would like to single out Nat Wolff for a special commendation.  He did an excellent job creating Fred, the out of control, angry teenage boy on the edge of murder and suicide.  It is not easy to create a totally unsympathetic, repulsive persona -- I assume he is acting -- whereas most of the actors in this film were playing roles not far removed from who they actually are.  Emma Roberts did a nice job with April, the confused, conflicted girl, groping her way through this wasteland of blasted people.  She comes the closest to being a sympathetic center of gravity in the film. 

I have some serious reservations about the film.  A number of things did not work.  The most salient was the evolution of Emily (Zoe Levin), the good hearted, lonely girl who looks for love in all the wrong places by providing sex to any and all.  She seems particularly indiscriminate in taking on Fred -- and she doesn't seem to do Fred any real good.  He doesn't improve any on account of her.  She undergoes a dramatic, inexplicable transformation from ready sexual compliance to vicious attack dog, giving Fred his comeuppance by smashing a bottle against his head.  But it doesn't make sense.  It completely nullifies her character and turns her into something completely different without making any kind of convincing transition.  The filmmakers must have decided that we can't just leave a likeable slut alone.  That would be too offensive to American middle class women.  So we have to turn her into a hostile, avenging bitch that we can be more comfortable with.  Unfortunately, it turns Emily into a completely unconvincing shell of a character. 

Another problem is the soccer coach, Mr. B. (James Franco).  Mutual attraction leads to an affair between the coach and April, who also works for him as a babysitter.  But then the coach two times her with another girl on the soccer team.  April finds out, gets upset, and breaks off the relationship.  It completely undermines the credibility of the character of Mr. B. 

But I think the reason this was done is that the filmmakers feel a strong need to discredit this relationship and affirm officially prevailing sexual prejudices.  It is unacceptable in American society for an older man to have a sexual affair with a teenage girl, particularly if he is her teacher or soccer coach.  There is a very strong public profession of this bias in our popular culture.  It is nonsense, of course, like most of our publicly espoused sexual biases, and in fact relationships of this sort go on all the time in high schools all over America.  A certain number of them are exposed and appear fairly frequently in the news media, and people lose their jobs or go to jail on account of them.  However, the vast majority play out in anonymous secrecy.  Our legal system treats these relationships as "rape," although in fact very few of them are actually "rapes."  The film exposes this very clearly for the lie that it is and that is to the film's credit, but then they have to turn around and repudiate the point that they spent a lot of time and effort to make. 

The real problem here is the girl, April.  She is a willing, if not eager, participant in the sexual relationship with the coach.  This makes a mockery of conceptualizing such a relationship as "rape."  This has to be punished.  She can't be allowed to get away with this.  So Mr. B's feelings for April have to be nullified and April has to be made to look like a confused, immature girl who made a foolish mistake which she herself now recognizes.  April comes around to a "right" view that is in line with prevailing disapproval.  The filmmakers must have consulted with the Catholic Church on the script.  So this makes for another degrading blemish on the film. 

Finally, the film is very skittish about male-male sex, and never really deals with it head on.  Teddy (Jack Kilmer) drops in on Fred at his house when he happens to be out and comes inside to share a joint with Fred's father.  A seduction attempt by the father on Teddy is hinted at but abruptly terminated before it gets a chance to go anywhere.  Later, near the end of the film, Fred's inclination toward the same sex is obliquely suggested and then quickly repudiated.  But he had shown no such interest at any time earlier in the film.  I think the filmmakers introduced this in order to tar him further by implying he is gay after having Emily cut his head open with a bottle.  If they had really wanted to take this issue seriously they should have made the sexual attraction between Fred and Teddy evident from the beginning.  But the filmmakers don't really know what to do with this subject. 

So while this is a seriously flawed film, its characters and its portrayal of the disintegrating culture in which they struggle for their emotional survival are strong enough to hold a viewer's interest and attention.  It presents the sexual preoccupations of lonely, lost teenagers in the white upper middle class, but in the end affirms the conventional moral judgments on human relations that American audiences (or censors) will insist on.  This severely limits the film and gives it an atmosphere of ordinariness when it could have been a bold challenge to our normal judgmental attitudes.  The film does a very good job of depicting the social and psychological decay and disintegration that is the outcome of our archaic, oppressive sexual culture that fails utterly to offer young people an avenue of sexual relatedness that is positive and constructive, but in the end it simply reiterates those very values and prejudices that are the root of the problem. It had the potential to be a truly great film, but fell down on account of the mediocre, conventional vision of the director and script writers.