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Review : Opera Tampa's 'Madama Butterfly' soars with sadness

 
Yunah Lee brings humor and power to the role of Cio-Cio-San, and Richard Troxell is appropriately smarmy as B.F. Pinkerton in Opera Tampa’s Madama Butterfly at the Straz Center in Tampa.
Yunah Lee brings humor and power to the role of Cio-Cio-San, and Richard Troxell is appropriately smarmy as B.F. Pinkerton in Opera Tampa’s Madama Butterfly at the Straz Center in Tampa.
Published March 15, 2015

TAMPA

Ladies, a few things to file under "He's just not that into you": Not calling, not introducing you to the family, flirting with others.

Here's another: Marrying you in Japan and then leaving for three years with no correspondence while he takes up with a blond Jezebel across the ocean.

Oh, Madama Butterfly. Hers is a tale of devotion and sorrow, a timeless cautionary story for lovers tucked in an operatic masterpiece that explores East-West relations. And for opera, it's an unusual study in the nuance of everyday females, the men a secondary concern.

Puccini's opera, which Opera Tampa is presenting as a part of the Florida Opera Festival in its 20th season at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, is one of the most popular in the world. In fact, it was the first production Opera Tampa ever staged in 1996.

Puccini's music is luscious and large, impossible to overlook thanks to the energized Opera Tampa orchestra under the direction of Daniel Lipton. Listen for twinkling accents from harps and flutes, for birds chirping and hopes rising and sinking.

The story is just so tragic. Fifteen-year-old (yes, 15) geisha Cio-Cio-San, or Butterfly, gets married to American Navy Lt. B.F. Pinkerton in 1904. She is shunned by the community and converts to Christianity, devoted to her husband above all. But Pinkerton sees her as a doll, something to be collected. What he really wants is an American wife. Yuck.

Yunah Lee's soprano stands up to the very difficult task, deepening as the character ages and hardens. Her Flower Duet with Lauren Segal as servant Suzuki is ethereal, her Tu, Tu, Piccolo Iddio heartbreaking.

But more impressive is the complex vulnerability Lee gives Butterfly.

In a sense, she's weak, hanging all her hopes on her husband and refusing to see the situation for what it is. In another sense, Butterfly is strong. By Act 2, she's dressed like a wartime wife in full post-Victorian garb (fabulous costumes by Dean Brown). She's obstinate but fortified by the humor people only find when things are really bad. Lee's subtle comedy carries the second act, which can be a long road since Pinkerton is missing most of the time.

She stands in one place and waits for her husband for so long, so long it begins to make the audience uncomfortable. Here, the orchestra, the stunning set by Paul Shortt and transformative lighting by Driscoll Otto get the display they deserve. It's all building up to a conclusion we hope doesn't come true (we won't ruin it for you).

Lee almost makes tenor Richard Troxell's Pinkerton feel inconsequential. He's not, of course. His character is the actual worst, and everyone knows it. That's why the whole crowd jokingly booed him on curtain call. Troxell, who made the husband feel extra smarmy, was gracious and laughed.

Even he knows Pinkerton is a cad. Team Butterfly.

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Contact Stephanie Hayes at shayes@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8716. Follow @stephhayes.