Review - Welsh National Opera, Madam Butterfly, Bristol Hippodrome

This evening I was going with the boy, which meant that not only had I got plush seats near the front, but we also went out for a meal first. In hindsight, this turned out to be a mistake. Having left the cafe, which was two minutes walk from the theatre, ten minutes, according to the cafe clock, before the production started, we somehow contrived to arrive after the performance had started. Apparently, this was my fault, as I work in the cafe, and therefore should have realised that the clock was slow. My defence, that the clock being slow is the only thing that prevents me from being late to work every day and was therefore something that I’d never experienced before as a problem, didn’t go down well. A bad start.

Anyway, all of this meant that we didn’t get to our plush seats until the interval, but had to stand at the back. Thos proves that a) you should never trust clocks and b) as there were about 60 people doing the same thing as us, performances should never start promptly. This meant that we couldn’t see the subtitles, so, without their guidance, this is what appeared to be happening in the first act:

Something colonial was happening in Japan which involved some kind of manly colonial chat, and then said men smoked cigars whilst watching Japanese women dance. Main man falls in love with main woman. Everyone seems happy. There is a party and possibly a wedding. There appears to be a song about sake, but that could have been my imagination. The arrival of an angry fat bald man in an enormous white robe is heralded by a small boy flailing his arms and the clashing of cymbals. Evidently this has something to do with main woman shouldn’t have fallen in love with main man, as angry man hits at her a bit with a very soft looking whip. It doesn’t look like it can hurt very much but she falls to the ground anyway. Presumably it’s a pride thing. Party crowd tuts at one of them, but I can’t tell which, and then leaves. Man and woman left alone. They sing, presumably about the fact that they’re in love and about the apparent difficulties that I haven’t fully understood. She prances around, her body language and tone of music suggesting that she’s oscillating between hope and fear. It sounds lovely but goes on for a long time. The boy is clutching at his face in pain. I want it to be the interval. Eventually it is the interval.

I push my way in the opposite direction to everyone else. My way is blocked by old men congregating around the ice cream stand and braying in fantastically posh voices about their wives. One’s wife is here, one’s isn’t. They both look over the moon about their respective state of affairs, which I presume speaks volumes about their respective marriages. I am not in a good mood.

I find our seats. They are in the front row. A violinist plays practically in my face and the woman next to me fusses over whether or not I missed the first act. The boy gives me some wine and jelly babies. This all makes me feel better. I can now see the subtitles. Opera really needs subtitles. As we’re watching Butterfly decline in her hilltop house waiting for her husband to come back (turns out he’s a bit of a cad, which I would have known if I’d understood the first half), it struck me that the plots of both operas I’d seen in the last two days followed an incredibly similar trajectory, not just in the tragic fate of the heroine, but also in the fact that once these women have abandoned their old lives for love, they lose their financial independence. Clearly you can’t have both a man and money in opera universe. Unfortunately, this woman doesn’t get either. It also made me wonder about that stock figure of literature, the wronged woman dying for love. Why is literature, and apparently, opera, fascinated with her? Is it for slightly misogynistic aesthetic reasons – Edgar Allan Poe one called the death of a beautiful woman ‘the most poetical topic in the world’, or is there a genuine sympathy, even solidarity, between these artists and women? The ivory tower can easily be mistaken for Rapunzel’s, after all. As I decided I was probably watching the thing for a mixture of the two reasons, and wondering if my enjoyment thus made me slightly hypocritical, I decided to stop thinking and enjoy it.

Again, the interminable fates of opera worked their force on the protagonist. As Butterfly and her maid entombed themselves in their petal strewn house, their silhouettes through the wall looked so ghostly that her actual suicide seemed more like a formality than a choice. Again, the set was beautiful – cherry trees straight from a Japanese-inspired Christmas card framed a house with semi-transparent sliding doors. Although these doors kept being elaborately opened and closed, their fragility and transparency seemed to be inviting the audience to question ideas of the public and private, and Butterfly’s ability to shut out her suitors whilst remaining open for her husband. As Butterfly ceremoniously changed back into her wedding clothes and attempted to transform herself back into the bride she had been, the loose hair and dress had once looked flowing and feminine now looked wild and threatening, as if they could strangle her at any moment. Again, the inevitability of the ending only served to make it feel more poignant, although this time my sadness was tinged with anger at the fact that this man wasn’t even worth moping over. As with La Traviata, if you enjoy bawling your eyes out, brilliant fun.

Best things about the opera:
- You’ll definitely see everyone you know over the age of 60 in the interval.
- Subtitles.

Go to http://www.wno.org.uk/ for details on both operas.
The Welsh National Opera will be at Bristol Hippodrome until the 21st November and will move to The Mayflower, Southampton, on the 25th. Go to bristolhippodrome.org.uk, or http://www.mayflower.org.uk/.