Okay, what I didn’t understand about Madame Butterfly was that it is essentially a lovely opera about the trafficking of a teenage girl to a foreign national for sexual purposes. Like a 15-year old girl. Which is what I said in the usher shack when I went to change out of my uniform after the show. I kind of got an uncomprehending look from the other ushers. They thought it was a great tragic romance, and were all much more offended by Spring Awakening.
Not to say that I was exactly offended by Butterfly. In a nutshell, a Victorian period naval officer stationed in Japan purchases a young girl to be his rent-a-wife for his tour of duty, knocks her up and then abandons her for a “real” wife from back home. The girl, who believes she is a real wife, waits for his return, but discovers the truth and commits suicide to save her son and have him raised by her faithless “husband” and the new bride. Yeah. He’s a catch. But you do have to take these things in historical context. At the turn of the 20th Century, a girl of fifteen would have been considered more or less an adult. And it is truly represented as a tragedy, not a how-to-manual. These are not role models. But the other side is that if this was Law & Order: SVU, Stabler would have been calling this guy a hump and sweating him in the box by the second act. And if B.F. Pinkerton looked cross-eyed at one of my nieces, I’d have been kicking his dress whites clad butt all over Okinawa. Okay. Maybe I was a little offended.
Not that it wasn’t a beautiful production, and very moving. When Butterfly tells her son to look at her so that some trace of her face may stay in his memory, I got seriously teary-eyed. I love a good cry. But it still ooked me out. Every time Pinkerton went on about how sweet and innocent Butterfly was, and how he just had to have her, I got just the tiniest bit more nauseated. I don’t think it changes the fact that it is a beautiful work of art. But I think the betrayal of poor Butterfly is just that much more monstrous when viewed with these 21st Century eyes.
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2 comments:
I think part of Butterfly is she has to be young enough to believe she is that naive, trusting and willing to give so much for love - not many 25-yr-olds fit that mold. And YES, that douche deserves a kick in the head from every audience member on the way out. But you can't say this story does not happen every day - maybe not her sacrifice - but definitely the dual-marriage, selfish jack-hole.
I bought the story; sadly it's all too plausible. But I still found it creepy. Fortunately creepy isn't a deal breaker for me. But there is no way I could ever view it as a romance. Pure tragedy, for me at least.
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