A film I recently saw online at the Korean Film Festival 2021, "The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin", caused the story of Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly", and the exquisite "Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio . . . vieni ad adornar" ("Flower Duet"), to land differently with me this time.
The film began as a documentary about an elderly "comfort woman", a former prostitute, who had catered to servicemen at a defunct U.S. Army base in Korea (https://watch.eventive.org/kffdc2021/play/606b62f235ccef007635cf1d). It then evolved into a combination ghost story and horror story, making it a fitting metaphor for a tale about such survivors who lived in the shadows of a modernizing Korea.
There are 115 years between the 1904 premiere of "Madama Butterfly" and the 2019 film by directors Kim Dong-ryon and Park Kyoung-tae. Yet, the female protagonists in these two artworks - the comfort woman for American soldiers, and the naïf who married a U.S. Navy lieutenant - both captured the ambivalence, dependence, desperation, hope and disillusionment of their respective homelands, as Korea and Japan collided with an America boldly extending its military power into Asia.*
When my focus is purely on the music, "Madama Butterfly" and "La Boheme" are among the most beautiful operas I've ever heard. Could it be that Puccini felt the only way to make such tragic love stories bearable was to envelop them in spectacular music?
The literary antecedents of the opera are interesting. According to Wikipedia: "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel "Madame Chrysanthème" by Pierre Loti. Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play "Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan," which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.**
I certainly enjoyed listening to the different versions of "The Flower Duet", but Heather Johnson, are you holding out on us? I hope to hear or see your performance of the same someday!🤩. For the record, I especially loved:
These artists really imbued the duet with emotion and drama as Cio-Cio San's excitement, at the return to Japan of her husband, Lt. Pinkerton, drew her skeptical maid Suzuki and their son into her over-the-top exuberance. Sadly, we know "she's about to go through some things".
Not Exactly Musical Notes:
"On July 8, 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world. (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/opening-to-japan)
A film I recently saw online at the Korean Film Festival 2021, "The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin", caused the story of Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly", and the exquisite "Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio . . . vieni ad adornar" ("Flower Duet"), to land differently with me this time.
The film began as a documentary about an elderly "comfort woman", a former prostitute, who had catered to servicemen at a defunct U.S. Army base in Korea (https://watch.eventive.org/kffdc2021/play/606b62f235ccef007635cf1d). It then evolved into a combination ghost story and horror story, making it a fitting metaphor for a tale about such survivors who lived in the shadows of a modernizing Korea.
There are 115 years between the 1904 premiere of "Madama Butterfly" and the 2019 film by directors Kim Dong-ryon and Park Kyoung-tae. Yet, the female protagonists in these two artworks - the comfort woman for American soldiers, and the naïf who married a U.S. Navy lieutenant - both captured the ambivalence, dependence, desperation, hope and disillusionment of their respective homelands, as Korea and Japan collided with an America boldly extending its military power into Asia.*
When my focus is purely on the music, "Madama Butterfly" and "La Boheme" are among the most beautiful operas I've ever heard. Could it be that Puccini felt the only way to make such tragic love stories bearable was to envelop them in spectacular music?
The literary antecedents of the opera are interesting. According to Wikipedia: "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel "Madame Chrysanthème" by Pierre Loti. Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play "Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan," which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.**
I certainly enjoyed listening to the different versions of "The Flower Duet", but Heather Johnson, are you holding out on us? I hope to hear or see your performance of the same someday!🤩. For the record, I especially loved:
Montserrat Caballé and Shirley Verrett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hc1NVhOrg
Angela Gheorghiu and Enkelejda Shkosa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3Fm2j57pQ
These artists really imbued the duet with emotion and drama as Cio-Cio San's excitement, at the return to Japan of her husband, Lt. Pinkerton, drew her skeptical maid Suzuki and their son into her over-the-top exuberance. Sadly, we know "she's about to go through some things".
Not Exactly Musical Notes:
"On July 8, 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world. (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/opening-to-japan)
"Causes of the Korean War (https://www.historycrunch.com/causes-of-the-korean-war.html#/)
"The Literary Origins of the Opera" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madama_Butterfly
And for no good operatic reason . . .here's the classic "Joy and Pain" by Frankie Beverly and Maze (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQhZSyXUUX8) 😎