Giacomo Puccini's Viene La Sera (aria from Madama Butterfly)

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun.

Madama Butterfly's Viene La Sera

I had no appetite for "Madama Butterfly". I was largely curious of its influence on Weezer's "Pinkerton". This was going to be a one-and-done: say I saw it and leave it at that. Because it seemed, well, silly, infantilizing women, exoticizing Asia, while satiating the audience's need for really trashy drama, which, apparently, was an initial criticism of the show on debut. Worse, the first act has plodding music (also a debut critique). Even now I can say what Puccini's work possesses is momentum, establishing musical motifs early and incorporating them organically into later arias. I'm more in line with Mozart, whose arias are more like, well, songs, which can be listened to alone or in sequence.

Well, I'm right, but I'm largely very wrong. I forgot there was a reason why I suspend belief for opera specifically: you must leave logic. It is one of the few places where it is safe to do so. Opera is one of the supreme mediums for the voice, the imperial "I", and, concerning the ego, there is no room for logic, only emotion.

On the count of women: this will hurt the show's audience by saying, but the titular Butterfly is, well, how should I say, mentally ill. The opera's origins begin with American missionary Jennie Long Correll, who describes, in The Japan Times, a very similar story of a Ms. Cho-san. But this type of story, of men running away from brief romances, sometimes producing a child, is actually really common, and the major departure between this and "Butterfly" is an immeasurable gulf: the woman, importantly, lives at the end. Sometimes they are in worse states than Butterfly, but nevertheless they go on. We can understand suicide, we can empathize with suicide, but we can't call it rational. So we recognize our female lead is special; in the beginning of Act II, she is especially stupid.

On the count of Japan: there's nothing in the libretto that is racist. In fact, much of it reads like the Chinese classic, Story of the Stone, a drama of romance and family ties, except for, obviously, the end. There's been some hullaballo, apparently, that the portrayal of geishas as poor and disgraced is ignorant. This is far from correct. That's akin to saying all singers in America are like Taylor Swift. Entertainers populate all ranks of society, and Butterfly is lower-ranked, not really capable of palace intrigue. Given the heavily-ordered, bureaucratic Confucian society Japan was - and still is - being a geisha really did not carry prestige, unless one were to marry into a family or were protected by some notable someone. Remember that, in these older societies, there were more laws against the local rabble than for. I actually see lots of evidence that Puccini was very particular in his studies of Japan, which has been documented. If there’s anything Puccini gets flat-out wrong, it’s the language itself; Cio-Cio-san contains the wrong honorific (and even this can be defended by the opera, as san is neutral and can be symbolic of Cio-Cio's complete rejection of her own culture for love). Further, the story isn't about Japan; it works just as well if Butterfly were from Puccini's hometown of Lucca. It literally doesn't matter who of what race plays any of the roles.

And, on the last count, of it being silly, well ... what changed my mind? It came into being I really had to pee. I always "study" an opera before I watch it, listening to various recordings. I was in the first half of the first act, which was insurmountable for me and where I usually stopped studying. I left, and, by opera rules(?), I couldn't go back in, forced to watch the recording of it. Thus missing that glorious, beautiful ending of Act I. I immediately regretted casting doubt on the show - I felt Puccini's ghost gloating - and vowed to look for its virtues, whereupon I found many. (To be fair to me, apparently the ending of Act I did not appear in the debut, and was added later by Puccini to appease his audience.)

I found out Puccini was quite good at having his cake and eating it too. If you know the show's end, the first act can be very offputting and smug, casting Pinkerton as a hard heel, eager to bed every women at every shore. One wishes Puccini could cast arrogance as Mozart did: with energy, with bluster, with color, with humor. Butterfly's first aria is immaculate, but it makes you think she's very stupid (and, over the course of the show, you find the opera doesn't disagree). That glorious ending, then, where Butterfly and Pinkerton are alone singing of their love, comes entirely out of left field and is believable, regardless of what preceded it. It is a little moment where the playboy believes he is participating in something true and the teenager is grasping at something real. Even if we don't believe in it, upon inspecting it in our own world, the opera convinces you to believe. I remember thinking, mouth agape, Boy howdy, am I wrong.

It begins with the "Viene la sera", where the opera turns away from the petty domestic squabbles and clever dialogue of Butterfly's relations, the marriage broker, the Consul, et cetera and turns to our duo, Pinkerton and Cio-Cio. It's preceded by Butterfly's first appearance in the opera, through the "Ancora un passo or via", which is pure wonderment and femininity. Here, Puccini colors the mysteries of love,

Pinkerton: Viene la sera. (Night is falling.)
Butterfly: E l'ombra e la quiete. (And darkness and peace.)
Pinkerton: E sei qui sola. (And you are here alone.)
Butterfly: Sola e rinnegata! / Rinnegata... e felice! (Alone and renounced! / Renounced and happy!)

Which, objectively speaking, isn't all too bad, but it's still not a good situation to be in.

The servants close the doors behind the newly-wed couple, leaving them truly alone. The soprano (Butterfly) and tenor (Pinkerton) exchange coy words:

Butterfly: Quest'obi pomposa di scioglier mi tarda... (I long to take off this ceremonial sash)
si vesta la sposa (let the bride be dressed)
di puro candor. (in pure white.)

Pinkerton: Con moti di scoiattolo, (With squirrel-like movements) i nodi allenta e scioglie! (she shakes the knots loose and undoes them!)

And Pinkerton, though not of honest intentions, has this beautiful, soaring verse, showing that his joy, honest, is virtuous in of itself:

Pinkerton: Bimba, dagli occhi pieni di malia (Child, with eyes full of witchery)
ora sei tutta mia. (you are all mine.)

Later,

Pinkerton: Ma intanto finor non m'hai detto, (But meanwhile, you haven't told me yet,)
ancor non m'hai detto che m'ami. (you haven't told me you love me.)

full of the gladness a groom possesses when he has a hold of something real. You can, if you wish, read into this an indictment of male insecurity.

Butterfly replies, with apprehension,

Butterfly: Le sa. Forse dirle non vuole (I do. Maybe I'm unwilling)
per tema d'averne a morir! (to say so for fear of dying of it!)

and Pinkerton rejoinders, to the triumph of the orchestra,

Pinkerton: Stolta paura, (Foolish fear -)
l'amor non uccide! (love does not kill!)

perhaps putting the audience in the uncomfortable position into realizing there is a kind of courage and nobility in even a philanderer.

We can talk to death about Puccini's theming - for example, the strings in this passage remind us of Butterfly's introduction, through the "Ancora un passo" - but what matters most are the things in this duet alone, the setting of night, Butterfly's hesitation - and foreshadowing of the opera's remaining tragedy - and Pinkerton's motivation, which, as the duet goes, are subsumed entirely by their feelings for one another at this moment, even if temporary, even if illusory. The music makes them real, and through that they come past the art and reach us, the audience.

It’s very much the opposite of Mozart’s work. Let’s take, say, “Magic Flute”, where we can say the love between Tamino and Pamina is undeserved, and marks the most boring period of the opera. (Note, too, it is critical to put Tamino first, because “Magic Flute” is rather male-centric.) Here, Puccini fills in the blanks, paints human desire in all of its intensity, and depicts the psychology that goes behind Cio-Cio and Pinkerton’s (temporary) love. It is extremely deserved, and elevates “Butterfly” from being a crude depiction of love. This aria demonstrates Puccini’s true seriousness when it comes to the subject, such that we believe the tragedy of the ending with full sincerity. There are some things you can only win through pure art, and this affect is one of them.

I do mentally divide "Butterfly". There is the side of the drama, and the side of the music. You can take the music very seriously, but not the drama. I think the music is an illuminating depiction of love and despair, but the drama is a toy to me. That's fine. Funnily enough, that's often how opera works. And perhaps that's what we should regularly expect.

I propose an interesting, if heretical, rewrite of "Butterfly": I would like every extraneous role to be cut out, condensed to one character, maybe Suzuki's, maybe the consul's. It takes place in the theater of the mind; the opera is psychological, not really dramatic. Butterfly's "other" is a mirror through which she bounces thoughts off of, who never really reveals their own thought, mortified as they are. She can act as pseudo-husband, pseudo-mentor, pseudo-marriage maker, pseudo-suitor, but be none of these in actuality, merely act as jumping-off points for Butterfly to consider her situation. That beautiful aria of despair, opening Part II, should be the climax of the same part. The part proceeds like this: cautious optimism, desire, then deep, deep despair, then pitiful hope, leading to the transcendental Humming Chorus, then end. It should be a rollercoaster of emotions, resembling the train of thoughts in a bipolar mind. I feel this would be closer to reality and less like a soap.

But it's Puccini's work, and I dare not rebuke it. I have made much fun of his Italian sentimalities, but I shall stop. Only one note: the opera, in my mind, still, is broken. Weezer delivered, beautifully, the male side. It would be nice that the female side, of Butterfly's, would be so crafted too.