Soprano Sandra Lopez has sung the lead role of Cio Cio-San in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” dozens of times all over the world, but this weekend will be a new first with the role.
For the first time in about 50 “Butterfly” productions, Lopez will portray a Butterfly outside the shadow of exaggerated Japanese stereotypes.
“It’s going to be true to the story and true to Puccini’s vision, but we’re going to see it from the perspective of real live people making choices,” Lopez said as she prepared for this weekend’s opening at Tucson Music Hall as part of the fifth annual Tucson Desert Song Festival. “We’re not falling into some stereotypical ‘Oh we know what’s going to happen. It’s really tragic.’ No. At any moment something else could have happened. We get to see all those possibilities in each character … as if it’s happening right now.”
Lopez credits Japanese-American director Matthew Ozawa, whose approach is to set aside historically accepted stereotypes — mainly that Butterfly, abandoned by her American husband and then the couple’s young son, commits the ultimate sacrifice by taking her own life as part of some Japanese code.
“Madama Butterfly” tells the story of Cio Cio-San, who abandons her religion and converts to Christianity to win the heart of an American soldier. Her family abandons her when she marries the American, who quickly leaves her in Japan when he returns home. After several years, he returns with a new bride to take the couple’s child to America. Ci Cio-San agrees then commits suicide, an ending which many see as following the Japanese samurai bushido honor code.
Lopez said Ozawa shines the light on those around Cio Cio-San who could have prevented her suicide.
“She’s a human being and any one of the people in the story could have prevented it and stepped in. They are all sort of complicit in what happened, and we need to explore that tragedy without making it somehow ‘this is her story and it’s inevitable,’” Lopez said. “We’re going to make it immediate and that any minute, something else could have happened and why does this turn out to be the inevitable ending.”
“It’s more than just seeing a postcard of Japanese culture. We’re really bringing the story,” added tenor Jason Ferrante, who sings the role of Goro the marriage broker, a role he has done a dozen times.
“It’s not going to be about doing an imitation of Japanese culture. It’s going to be about telling a story,” said Ferrante, who is making his first stage appearance with Arizona Opera since he was in the company’s 2007-08 performance of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” “We gradually build the story that Butterfly becomes isolated on a virtual island that is her little hell. They take it very seriously.”
The Arizona Opera production reunites Lopez and Ferrante. He was Goro in Lopez’s first career “Madama Butterfly” and the pair have been friends since they were high-schoolers auditioning for music schools.
