Knoxville Opera’s Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini
Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Downtown Knoxville
Friday, October 25, 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 27, 2:30 PM
Tickets and Information
Giacomo Puccini, opera’s master of melodrama, was inspired to write his Madama Butterfly after seeing a London production of David Belasco’s play, itself based on the short story Madame Butterfly by John Luther Long. Puccini was a huge admirer of Belasco, the American playwright, director, and producer, notably for his style of naturalism that reached into all corners of the theatre, from acting styles to staging to lighting. Puccini’s own theatrical talent, though, lay in manipulating the heartstrings of the audience through his music—a talent he inarguably demonstrates in Madama Butterfly, which opens Knoxville Opera’s 2019-20 season this weekend.
However, both the play and the 1904 opera—the story of an American naval officer, Lt. Pinkerton, who recklessly weds a young geisha, Cio-Cio San, in Nagasaki, only to abandon her—presented Japan not as it really was, but in simplified terms and aesthetics that turn-of-the-century western audiences imagined it to be. However, Puccini and his librettists—Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica—created an original Act I which made alterations in the character presentations that have surely saved the work from what would have been an ignominious fate in the 21st Century. Instead, Puccini’s opera paints Cio-Cio San as an innocent victim of both an ethically bankrupt social system and a pleasure-seeking westerner.
And, then, there is Puccini’s magnificently beautiful score, which when juxtaposed with the dark tragedy of innocence victimized, is made even more powerful. For Knoxville Opera’s Cio-Cio San, soprano Danielle Pastin, it is one supremely emotional journey.
“The music is beyond beautiful and it’s beyond moving,” claims Pastin. “For me, it is really an honor to sing the role because it is almost like a rite of passage for my voice type… Puccini was a master of writing for the voice, he just wrote it perfectly as it should be expressed. The text is set almost as if you are not singing.”
Pastin received a degree from the University of Maryland, but the majority of her training came through young artist programs, including the apprentice program at Santa Fe Opera, later landing at Central City Opera, and finishing in 2010 with the two-year Resident Artist Program at Pittsburgh Opera. Pastin had her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2011 as Masha in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, following that role with Frasquita in Carmen during the 2012-13 season. In 2018, she sang the role of Nedda in the Met’s Pagliacci. This Knoxville Opera production will be her third Cio-Cio San, the most recent one being last season at Virginia Opera.
“I learned the role as a cover first, something I would recommend that all young singers do if they are possibly going down the Butterfly route—because, for lack of a better way to put it, it’s one helluva role. It’s one helluva sing. It’s nice to have the time with it without the pressure of having to perform it first.”
Pastin revealed that one of the problems for any singer in the cast of Madama Butterfly is preventing being overwhelmed by the music’s emotions.
“It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the drama of it because of how incredibly gorgeous the music is and how moving it is, but you can’t foreshadow what is about to happen. One of my favorite parts of the role is where Butterfly is sitting waiting for Pinkerton to come back. Being on stage for the “Humming Chorus”, the Act III intermezzo—it’s the only time that Butterfly is not singing when she is on stage, and it’s such a great pleasure to just sit there and listen to what is coming out of the orchestra pit, it’s so incredible. You can just visualize what Butterfly is seeing, and thinking, and feeling by listening to the music—it is so descriptive.”
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Cast of Knoxville Opera’s Madama Butterfly
Cio-Cio San – Danielle Pastin
Lt. B.F. Pinkerton – Richard Troxell
Suzuki – Lisa Chavez
Sharpless – Sean Anderson
Goro – Nicholas Nestorak
Bonzo – David Crawford
Stage Director – Brian Deedrick
Music Director/Conductor – Brian Salesky
