Madame Butterfly, Austin Lyric Opera, November 17, 2006


Catching up.

Lately, the ALO has reduced their total stinker productions to one a year. It was good to get this one out of the way.
Not all of it stank, though. Importantly, the Cio Cio San we heard Friday night had a fine big voice (which clobbered poor Suzuki at times), and Pinkerton was an appropriately romantic tenor. The chorus sounded good, as did the orchestra.
But - I think they hired my cat to stage direct this mess. The set was bare, but everything seemed to move around. Toward the end of the first act, after the most chaste seduction I've seen, Pinkerton tries to take Butterfly to bed. The whole scene revolves around the bed. I thought I knew where the bed was, but at the end of the act, he seems to take her outside. I guess they kept the bed outside. Pinkerton's wife in the last act sort of marches through what I thought was the living room to the garden. Crazy.
The music will only take you so far. They get a bye for the next opera, Glass' "Barbarians at the Gate" which looks like a touring production a la "Dead Man Walking."

Posted: Wed - November 29, 2006 at 06:56 PM           |

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