Backstage with Matthew: Unlocking the Truth of Identity
The first opera to open is Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, which will be brought to life under the deeply insightful musical leadership of Eun Sun Kim. I sat down with associate director Miroku Shimada a few days ago to discuss director Amon Miyamoto’s concept for this important new production, one that began life at the Nikikai Opera Theatre in Tokyo in 2019, before heading to Dresden and now here to San Francisco. The concept moves the point of view to a character we typically only glimpse briefly: Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton’s son, Trouble.
Miroku Shimada (right) directing a rehearsal of Madame Butterfly
Madame Butterfly has become a problematic piece to stage, particularly in the US, given its roots in orientalism and cultural stereotyping. The piece was written in 1904 - a time when the World’s Fairs were opening doors to new cultural influences, but often doing so without sensitivity for cultural authenticity. Producers of Butterfly today must work to find a way to tell the story with integrity, uplifting the beauty of the score, while holding the piece up to a lens of greater cultural examination.
Director Amon Miyamoto has created a new Butterfly production that, I believe, finds that balance. Amon’s hope was to create a vision of Butterfly that could resonate across the world, finding truth in the music, including the complex truth of Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton’s love, and focusing on the manifestation of that love - their son, Trouble.
Image courtesy Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre
We begin the opera with a silent introduction in which we fast forward 30 years into the future. Pinkerton is on his death bed, anguished and remorseful for what happened in Nagasaki and the impact it had on his family. Hooked up to an IV, Pinkerton shares a document with Trouble (now 34 or so) – a confessional of father to son through which Trouble comes to learn his early history and the story of his mother – a mother he barely remembers.
Associate director Miroku Shimada paints a picture of Trouble having had a challenging childhood. As a boy of mixed-race in 1920s America, he has been teased and taunted at school. He knows nothing of his mother. Suzuki (Cio-Cio-San’s former maid), is present in the Pinkertons' American house, but Trouble doesn’t know anything about her – Suzuki remains silent to her past, believing fervently that her obligation is to Trouble, and continuing a life of service to the family. Trouble’s American stepmother Kate has tried desperately to do a good job raising him, but she has never been able to connect with him. Both Trouble and Pinkerton are distant and removed – Trouble because he’s kept from knowing the truth, and Pinkerton because of the remorse he carries for what he did to Cio-Cio-San. It is this anguished family dynamic that Pinkerton is looking to resolve as he shares the truth with his son.
From there the story unfolds. Adult Trouble is always on stage, observing, learning, understanding. There is a beautiful moment where he tries to get close to his younger self and his younger mother, but he cannot – he is in a different plane of existence. But through this arc of self-discovery, and the ultimate understanding of his story of origin, he not only comes to learn what happened, but also to unlock his own early memories. This is a young man who has never truly understood his racial or cultural identity, finally understanding his own truth. It’s powerful.
Image courtesy Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre
As Miroku shares with me and as I saw firsthand in Dresden, the production explores the relationship of father and son in a way that is quite unique for the piece. Miroku explains that our director, Amon, puts a huge emphasis on understanding the true nature of human love. The reconciliation of a dying father and son through the ultimate sharing of a difficult but fundamental truth creates a powerful lens of the emotional challenges of first-generation immigrants.
Image courtesy Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre
The physical world that Amon, Miroku and their designers have created is a nuanced expression of this vision. Boris Kudlička’s set (he was last with us for Elektra in 2017) is one of fluidity – huge gossamer fabrics swirling across the stage in organic patterns, and the fragility of Butterfly’s small home as a focal point. This is a story expressed in the imagination of the adult Trouble and is constantly shifting, morphing, coming in and out of focus.
An early staging rehearsal on the War Memorial stage
The costumes are by Kenzō Takada, the Japanese fashion icon who sadly passed away from complications from Covid-19 in 2020. Miroku has great reverence for how Kenzō took the extraordinary tradition of the kimono in Japan and advanced it forward, modernizing it, making it something that reflects a more contemporary sensibility. Cio-Cio-San’s wedding kimono is maybe the most striking example, the kimono transformed into a form-fitting dress with a kimono-style over garment, history stepping forward. Miroku expressed to me how seriously Kenzō took this project, one of the last before he died; it was hugely important to him to get every detail perfect.
Image courtesy Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre
It is critical that works like Madame Butterfly find contemporary resonance in ways that honor the work, but also address the historical challenges they carry. Amon Miyamoto’s production, here restaged by both Amon and Miroku, illuminates the work afresh for us, retaining so much of what makes Butterfly one of the great 20th century classics, but looking at it through the gossamer textures of memory, and the more acute uncovering of identity. Madame Butterfly can tend towards a culturally questionable glorification of a love story that leaves some modern viewers uneasy; but in Amon’s production, our focus becomes the very real, tangible result of that love – an anguished young man who is finally given the key to unlock his history, his emotions, and his truth. I cannot wait to share this with you.
