REVIEW: Madam Butterfly

And The Russian State Opera of Siberia's rendering at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, on Thursday last week (29th) added another strange twist to the bizarre, but beautifully composed, piece.

So here we are in Brighton listening to a Siberian rendering of an Italian's work about an American in Nagasaki falling in love with and 'marrying' a Japanese geisha girl and then abandoning her, taking their young child away with his new fledgling wife.

And, of course, in true Japanese hiri-kiri tradition, Madam Butterfly aka Cio-Cio-San aka Svetlana Ratslaf, falls on her knife as the tragedycomes to its demise.

Svetlana is truly awesome in this most wonderful of leading female roles. There is truly a meeting of Russian-Japanese poetic rapport in the way this production is produced.

Svetlana in the performance sense overcomes the somewhat trivial antics of her American lover (Mikhail Urusov) - booed somewhat ironically after the finish by the rapt audience who obviously took sides in the triste plot.

She will go far.

As will German Efremov, who plays the US consul. A fine baritone, he held many scenes together with his understated, but appreciated, appearances.

Again, much praise should go to Cio's maid Suzuki (Anastasia Lepeshinskaya), a mezzo soprano with the rare operatic ability to actually be able to act and sing angelically at the same time!

With music by the Russian State Opera Orchestra, ably conducted by Alexander Kosinskiy, this is a truly memorable production.

Just a pity that the plot is so desperately sad that one feels like becoming anti-American and ( dare I suggest it?) pro-Siberian during the evening.

With the multi-national input, it is all a little too emotionally confusing.

At least it was for me.

John Eccles.