Madame (a??) Butterfly

This weekend I went to the opera, and it sure beat last time when I forgot my ticket at home and had to run back and get it, which meant I had to spend the first half watching from the back, standing, where you can't see the supertitles. Sigh.

Anyway, this time was lovely. I wore a long dress and so was in the most dressed up at the opera category. Of course, I just thought about what the Fug Girls would say about my dress and the fact that I was tripping over it the whole time and the fact that my clutch was navy and my coat was black (and borrowed from a neighbor). But dressing up is still a ball!

Before the opera, I read the short story on which the opera was based: Basically, B.F. (Benjamin Franklin!) Pinkerton moves to Japan and hires a wife and a house. He cuts her off from her ancestors and religion (and suggests she adopt the western religion instead), and then leaves, promising (although not intending) to return. The short story highlights American individualism--Pinkerton insists that his bride cut herself off from her family, and insists on thicker walls and doors than Japanese houses typically had.

His bride, Cho-Cho-San is so devoted and loyal to him that she cannot believe that he has permanently left her. When Cho-Cho-San is dreaming about Pinkerton's return she says: "He don' say -- jus' he kiss us, oh, 'bout three -- seven -- ten -- a thousan' time! An' amberace us two thousan' time 'bout 'mos' -- tha' 's what he do -- till we got make him stop, aha, ha, ha! account he might -- might -- kill us! Tha' 's ver' bad -- to be kill kissing." It is painful to see her misplaced stubborn devotion and naivete.

Cho-Cho-San adopts all of the American ways of life that she can (as part of her devotion to her husband), but in the end, she dies in the Japanese way.

One of the first differences that I noticed between the short story and the opera was the way in which the use of Italian eradicated the Japanese/English language differences (Cho-Cho-San's broken English is somewhat pathetic--she is so determined to embrace everything American, but she can't quite do it). In addition, the opera made Pinkerton look less bad and more sad: Cho-Cho-San actively rejects her family in the opera (rather than Pinkerton forcing her to do so). Also, Pinkerton is repentant--he sees the error of his ways. This is a sympathy not afforded to him in the short story, where he simply sends his wife off of the ship to pick up his child.

The opera included "Kuroko"--what seemed to be a mixture of servants and stage hands whose whole bodies, including their heads, were covered in green fabric. You couldn't tell their gender or age. I'm curious about why they were covered--is this a comment on class differences? Or is it that they're simply supposed to be invisible?

Between Madame Butterfly and The Painted Veil, I'm not really high on men at the moment.


(picture, picture)