Madame Butterfly An Opera with Sub-Titles

My cousin Sue and my buddy Tim convinced me to watch my first opera this weekend--Madame Butterfly. The story is about a sailor who purchases a bride for nine-hundred ninety-nine years. The catch is, he has the option to opt out of this contract because she's on a month to month approval (why don't all marriage contracts come with this option?). So after he has this lady (who was a geisha by trade) fall in love with him, he leaves for the United States vowing to return. Meanwhile, Madame Butterfly gives birth to a child--a little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes (this is possible in the Asian world--my brother and his wife have one. The child has blonde hair and blue yes, but my brother's face. Genetics is cool huh?).

Three years later (he had promised her he'd return when the robin made it's nest again a.k.a. SPRING!) he returns, but with a new wife (she's gorgeous by the way--in a Debra Messing sort of sexy). The sailor and his wife end up wanting to take the child back to America with them. This distresses Madame Butterfly and in her depression, she kills herself hari-kari.

Now, I missed most of the action on stage. The opera is completely done in Italian. However, for the uneducated like me, there were sub-titles which flashed on a small screen above the stage. So I spent most of the time reading what was being said. The lyrics were actually pretty nice. One statement I remember in particular, uttered by Madame butterfly: "I gave the earth my tears, she gave me flowers". Yes, she actually wailed that much about the sailor being gone!!! Although I was reading half the time, I did hear the distress in her high pitched voice. But you see, what did she expect? She was an off-the-rack bride. She knew she could be returned. As for falling in love? W.T.F.? Sex and lust isn't love!

Now for my critique:
The sailor was named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton and he sailed on a ship named Abraham Lincoln. In the sailor's home (which he left to Madame Butterfly), they constantly flashed in the background pictures of the old movie stars (Clark Gable, Great Garbo, The Little Rascals). Very distracting to me. The sailor was played by some dude who looked like Dennis Hopper's character from Blue Velvet. So he was convincing as a scoundrel!!!

The female was played by a Japanese actress who looked 30 in Asian years (we look younger than our ages, so 30 would be about 40 in other years). She was trying to pull off 15 years old.
She did not, I repeat, did not look 15. They called her butterfly because she was suppose to be a pretty thing. The only time she looked like a butterfly to me was when she spread her arms during song and her kimono cloth fell to the ground, giving me the illusion that she had wings.

I had a good time, probably mainly to the company of Sue and Tim. They both got earfuls of either my sighs or complaints. I was shushed numerous times, as I would point out various mistakes (not of the singing) but of the stage direction. And I have a feeling they won't invite me to their next opera outing.