A Worthy Version of a Classic Weepy

The first time I encountered Emmanuel Villaume was at Tanglewood in 2000, when I was writing for a Parisian magazine. I was able to report to the folks back home that he led the Boston Symphony in remarkably supple and intense performances of Berlioz, Ravel, and Cesar Franck, whose Symphony in D Minor sounded especially organ like in the rain and humidity of a Lenox evening.Now in the midst of his debut run of “Madama Butterfly” at the Metropolitan Opera House, Mr. Villaume impresses with a similar approach to Puccini. On Saturday lissome strings, taut entrances and exits, full-bodied crescendi, and tasteful chiaroscuro created a fertile soil for the onstage voices. Looking remarkably like the young Dmitri Mitropoulos from the back, Mr. Villaume led in the same athletic style that distinguished the all-too-brief career of that Greek maestro, whose bust is now prominently featured in the Met’s downstairs gallery.Roberto Aronica was excellent as Pinkerton. His voice is sweet but also powerful, possessing enough heft to catapult him into the tenore di forza range. He has a vibrant top register and undeniable lyricism that serves his elongated melodic line extremely well. Mr. Aronica will also be singing Rodolfo this season at the Met, but seems ultimately destined for the heavier roles, such as Chenier or even Lohengrin.Vassily Gerello was warm and generous with his lyricism as a concerned and ethically conflicted Sharpless, that odd raissoneur role that helped a Western audience from the turn of the last century enter the floating world of fantasy Japan. Maria Zifchak as Suzuki was in fine voice, the “Io so che alle sue pene” trio between her and the two principal men was quite stunning. And Greg Fedderly was an entertaining and somewhat wretched Goro, providing much-needed comic relief in this quintessential weepy.Kallen Esperian, Playing Cio-Cio-San, did very well in this performance, employing her face and body in addition to her voice. Her sarcasm towards the rich man who could marry her and save all of this suffering was positively delicious. The performance was fraught with vocal problems, however.Terribly insecure in her upper register, Ms. Esperian missed many of her higher tones, causing havoc in the “Viene la sera” love duet. She also allowed her nervousness about potential gaffes to affect the run-up to many of these vital notes. Her “un bel di” was, thankfully, untouched, and her thespianism helped to communicate the exquisite poignancy of the subjunctive. I felt great sympathy for her, both as a character and as an artist. But truth be told, by the middle of act two, I was just as anxious as she for Pinkerton to return.The staging is simple and traditional, and I mean this as a compliment. The little house and the well tended garden provide just the right ironic contrast to the horrifying sequence of events. Staging touches are also clean and effective. The wedding photographer’s explosion of powder is startling and foreshadows the sound of the guns aboard the Abraham Lincoln some three years later. Designer Michael Scott, by creating such simple, pragmatic, and non-intrusive sets, communicated his profound realization (a point missed by many of his contemporaries) that it is not all about him.The real star of this production was the amazing Met orchestra. Mr. Villaume was marvelously adept at highlighting the delicate timbral colors of the piece, Puccini having worked so hard to create an arrangement of cherry-blossom nuance. The entr’acte that leads into the “vigil theme” exhibited, for me, the most exciting musicianship of the entire performance.Puccini is so beloved that it is easy to forget he was the first great composer of 20th-century opera, radically expanding the harmonic vocabulary of his immediate predecessors. Alban Berg revered Puccini – referred to him always in the third person, as “Signor Puccini” – and learned much of his naturalistic technique from the great exponent of verismo. As it watched the final scene this weekend, with the toddler playing on his swing while the mother commits the ultimate act of bushido on the other side of a paper wall, it was hard not to identify the lump in my throat as at least first cousin to the one at the conclusion of “Wozzeck.”

A Worthy Version of a Classic Weepy

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