Madam Butterfly – review

There's something in ENO's latest revival of its signature production that makes the story of Madam Butterfly seem even sleazier this time. It's not the staging per se – that, created in 2005 by the late Anthony Minghella and revived here by Sarah Tipple, still looks ravishing, with Michael Levine's glossy sets reflecting the acid colours of Han Feng's costumes plus a million falling cherry-blossom petals. Nor is it the music – Puccini's gorgeous score leaves no heartstring untugged, and it gets a full-bodied if rather routine orchestral performance here under Gianluca Marciano.

Instead, it's a serious imbalance in the casting. Playing Butterfly for the first time, Dina Kuznetsova dominates things far too easily. It's not just her voice, which is gleaming, penetrating and arresting; it's the fact that she puts the English words across more clearly than anyone else, with the possible exception of Pamela Helen Stephen's strong Suzuki. The leading men remain cardboard in comparison, so the focus is always on stubborn, deluded Butterfly, and on the relentless piling-on of her misfortunes.

The role of Pinkerton can be redeemed only by a fabulously ringing tenor voice or, in an emergency, by the sort of dashing, youthful looks that might suggest he too is too immature to appreciate what damage he is wreaking. Timothy Richards's middle-aged officer, sneaking a look at the conductor as he yanks at the unyielding tie of his child-bride's kimono, has neither. George von Bergen holds the stage and sings well as the decent but spineless US consul, but the orchestra overshadows him. The surtitles are all too useful.

Minghella's trick of using a Bunraku puppet to play Butterfly's son still pays off, capturing the little boy's innocence and making that part of the story especially wrenching. The silent puppet is possibly the most emotionally engaging character on stage – and that can't be right.