The reviews are in for a “Butterfly” production which was unanimously hailed a rare symbiosis of music, vocal power, design and direction. Can opera be “high tragedy” and balanced zen” at once? Read on…
David Gordon Duke writes in The Vancouver Sun (May 30th, 2010):
This is “designer opera” in the very best sense of that often mis-applied term: an imaginative and compelling evening of theatre that transforms an over-familiar story into a freshly moving tragedy.[...]
Given such unexpected visual cues, Puccini’s very familiar music takes on new urgency. Butterfly can often sound rather sugary, Puccini’s lush orchestration and soaring lines providing little more than a voluptuous entertainment. Conductor Jonathan Darlington gives the score a flat-out, hyper-emotional reading in which the great tunes still soar magnificently, but an insistent verismo edge intensifies the overall dramatic contour. Darlington daringly allows the brass to snarl and the percussion to beat as brutally as the composer intended; the VO orchestra hangs on his every gesture.
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Elissa Poole,The Globe and Mail (May 30th, 2010):
I thought Nixon in China would be the uncontested highlight of Vancouver Opera’s season. Well, Madama Butterfly is right there with it.
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Janet Smith, Georgia Straight, (May 30th, 2010):
♻ RetweetIf you think you’ve been there, done that with Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, take note: it’s unlikely you’ve ever seen or heard one like this, or that you ever will again. [...]
Despite the high tragedy, the whole night felt balanced. Can Italian opera approach anything like Zen? [...]
The key to this Madama Butterfly is that the music and the design become one, and nowhere is that more evident than in the devastating ending, after that ridiculously famous aria in which a mother says goodbye to a child. I won’t give away how it’s staged in case you’re lucky enough to score tickets, but trust me, it’s unforgettable. [...] this finale’s stark, artful vision—a striking abstraction of nation and blood—not to mention Kinoshita’s restrained strength in rendering it, will destroy you. You’ve been warned.
Posted by JKL, June 5, 2010
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