Review: BUTTERFLY at InSeries At Source

SOMETIMES, LESS IS LESS

Soprano Amanda Palmeiro, now performing the title role at English language performances of Butterfly for the InSeries, deserves an opera career as sensational as her voice. Already a prize-winner at Met auditions, she'll perform Papagena with the Washington National Opera's Domingo Cafritz Young Artists program at the Kennedy Center in November.

This production deconstructs Madama Butterfly, the three-act grand opera by Puccini, Illica, and Giacosa. To be sure, they adapted their work from a play by American playwright, director, and producer, David Belasco, who adapted it from American lawyer John Luther Long's short story, who may or may not have adapted it from a French novel by Pierre Loti. But adaptation does not equal deconstruction; the composer created a musical score of complexity, order, and great beauty. Stage Director and "Concept" Timothy Nelson seems to value deconstruction more than music. He regards opera as an industry, so this production represents his improvements to a product for which he seems to have lost respect. Nelson has turned Puccini's opera into a tab show, reducing it to four characters and one act. When other theatre artists have made the Madam Butterly story more contemporary (as did the creators of M. Butterfly and Miss Saigon), they did so without distorting Puccini's work. They left him out of the equation and created their own refractions/corrections/political rhetoric by creating new art, using their talents and agency.

Elizabeth Mondragon (as Suzuki), Brian Arreola (as Pinkerton), and Erik Grendahl (as Sharpless) joined Palmeiro and sang well. The outstanding pianist Jessica Krash supported the singers; however her "prepared piano" input to the orchestrations in the piano-vocal reduction exemplifies further distortion of the music in Puccini's score. Having the performers work barefoot seemed as distracting as it was inexplicable.

Performances, some in English with Ms Palmeiro and others in Italian with surtitles, continue at the Source Theatre through September 22. Call 202.204.7763 or visit inseries.org.

Photo by RX Loft

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