We are so accustomed to the idea of a 'universal language of music' that it often comes as a shock to discover that some mainstays of the opera repertory are not universally popular. A case in point is Puccini's Madama Butterfly, which has frequently met with resistance from Japanese audiences as well as Westerners living in the Far East. Harold S. Williams, a long-time resident in Japan and commentator on its cultural scene, suggested that the opera could always be sat through with closed eyes, but with keen enjoyment, if the stage setting proved too disturbing or if poor Cio Cio-San were too monstrous in bulk to look upon. Of course only Japanese or foreigners familiar with Japan ever writhed in their seats and reacted that way. The audiences in the West lapped up the music as they sat enraptured at the pseudo-Japanese scenes.

If we add to this comment on staging the fact that Madama Butterfly presents a bi-racial tragedy located after the 'opening' of Japan by Western colonial powers, then the potential for Eastern observers to 'writhe in their seats' increases still further. They might not appreciate obvious mistakes, such as the mixture of Chinese and Japanese decor in many productions, or a whole series of misrepresentations in Suzuki's prayer at the beginning of Act II: the garbling of names, confusion of Buddhist and Shinto rites, an implication of tedium in Suzuki's reference to a headache, or the fact that Puccini set the entire ritual to 'Takai yama', a popular song of the late Edo-period evoking blossoming cucumbers and eggplants. And they might also respond unfavourably to the general 'orientalism' of the opera itself, with a plot that implies a hierarchical opposition of West and East, American and Japanese, white and non white, male and female - privileging Pinkerton, for example, with an introductory aria in Act I, where as Butterfly initially appears on stage as part of the Japanese ambience.

Madama Butterfly understandably became a lightning-rod for conflicting opinions about colonialism, East-West relations, and westernization when it came to Japan less than a decade after its premiere. A partial first performance took place at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo in January 1914, when most of Act II was performed in Italian as part of a programme of dramatic excerpts. After the curtain closed on the Humming Chorus, however, it was opened again to reveal a set covered with cherry blossoms. The heroine came back on stage in a ricksha and sang 'Sakura' ('Cherry Blossoms') and other songs, such as 'Echigo-jishi', 'O-Edo Nihonbashi', 'Miya-sama' and 'Kimigayo', the national anthem. According to contemporary reports, this concluding medley received more applause than the preceding operatic performance.

This first Japanese production is intriguing in a variety of respects. Most obviously, it reveals the ability of a local company to perform a contemporary opera in the original language, and suggests the degree to which Western music bad been made accessible in the preceding decades by missionary schools and the adoption of European military band music by the imperial armed forces. At the same time, the incorporation of part of the opera into an evening's entertainment consisting of three other dramatic excerpts reveals a conscious assimilation to indigenous theatre traditions, such as Nô and Kabuki. The particular form of the adaptation, part Italian opera and part medley of Japanese songs, is not fortuitous, since the songs in the medley are the sources from which Puccini derived and adapted most of his oriental ambience. This process moreover, reversed the relationship between native and foreign, extracting the familiar and more popular 'local colour' from the exotic Italian opera, and placing the Japanese folksongs at the conclusion to stimulate applause.

As tentative as this introduction of the opera may seem, it received a rather mixed response, aggravating an already existing split between conservative and progressive factions of the audience. Whereas the former group did not enjoy opera, asserting that it would destroy traditional Japanese drama and undermine moral values, the latter preferred it, even holding unreasonable expectations about levels of performance. How intense this split was can be estimated from a review in Tokyo's leading newspaper, the Asahi Shinbun, which imagines the response of 'a bunch of old fogies':

This is an opera produced by a certain foreigner, Belasco, who made a bit by introducing Japanese customs to the West. Some people may say that the opera casts a contemptuous glance at the customs and habits of loose women in such places as Yokohama, and they may be enraged that such an opera has to be brought back to Japan and so shamelessly performed with singing and dancing - on the stage of the Imperial Theatre of all places. Such old fogies need not see this opera; but personally I'd rather make them see it and shock them. Even those who don't particularly feel embarrassed at seeing a bevy of young women adroitly dance the chonkina at the end of the opera will surely not be pleased at such a sight. But this again is the reaction of an old fogy, for whom an opera like this can only be a national disgrace. If, however, we reflect that this is the image of Japanese women held by Westerners, then this opera could be of some use to us in showing how Westerners think about Japan.

The first surprise is surely the attribution of authorship to Belasco's drama and the corresponding demotion of the score to an unacknowledged 'accompaniment' - Puccini's music clearly played second fiddle to the more important political issues raised by the plot. It is also difficult to imagine the putative shame and disgrace of this production, which shocked a conservative audience by bringing low-class women to the stage of a leading (all-male) theatre, linking the licentious activities of foreigners in Yokohama, the nearest treaty-port, with an institution representing Japanese morality in the insular capital city. The association seems to have been made particularly outrageous by having singers conclude their performance by dancing the chonkina, a strip-tease game played by prostitutes and their foreign customers in Yokoharna brothels. The fear of treaty-port prostitution influencing the national image ('Ioose women'/'national disgrace) is defused by an appeal to Japanese solidarity ('we'), accepting the linking of sex and country by projecting it back upon its foreign author, the source of a general prejudice: 'the image of Japanese women held by Westerners'.

In spite of this controversial beginning, Madama Butterfly continued to be performed on occasion, by visiting foreign troupes as well as local companies. Indeed, it soon became the vehicle for launching the international careers of Japanese sopranos in the title role, for example Tamaki Miura and Nobuko Hara. Performances could therefore celebrate the work in a variety of ways, as one of the most popular operas of the day, as a showpiece for a Japanese soprano, or as part of a larger process of westernization. At the same time Puccini's opera never entirely lost its unpleasant a orientalist overtones, provoking sensitive producers and listeners to acts of resistance and revision.

This interplay of interests is evident for example, in a production of Madama Butterfly presented by the newly formed Japan Opera Association on 26-9 May 1930 at the Tokyo Theatre. Advertisements described it as 'the most celebrated grand opera of the day' and touted the special guest appearance of the soprano, implying an audience appreciation of the score and the- performance that would not have been possible in 1914. None the less, the review in the Asahi Shinbun starts by emphasizing at length the ability of an indigenous company to present an indigenous subject without the distortions of (musically superior) foreign troupes, such as the Carpi Opera Company of Shanghai:

[That performance] was hardly acceptable to the general public - presented by a foreìgn opera troupe, it contained segments that struck the Japanese audience as being quite odd indeed. The new version [...] has eliminated the flaws of past productions. This Madame Butterfly is a remarkable success owing to its presentation, without artificiality and affectation, of the Nagasaki of 30 years ago and the love-conflict between a Japanese and a foreigner.

The Carpi production does not seem to have represented a Japanese milieu accurately, including Chinese elements in its costumes and sets, a mixture the general public apparently found rather disorientating. In addition to providing the corrective of cultural authenticity, the new staging also achieved historical precision in presenting the 'Nagasaki of 30 years ago'. Such a 'Japanese' production obviously reverses the relationship between native and foreign (as well as white and non- white) and privileges the former, striving for accuracy with a Japanese setting and cast for Japanese characters, while considering the other principale generically as gaijin (white foreigners) and filling their roles with occidental singers (in this instance, German and Russian) rather than Americans.

In fact, the review in the Hôchi Shinbun suggests that the opera was made more palatable by resisting the appropriation of Japanese culture and even 'de-orientalizing' it:

Many parts of the original opera - words, music and acting - are cut, but thanks to these cuts we Japanese can enjoy the opera without getting too angry. For example, such famous melodics as 'Kimigayo' and 'Miya-san, Miya-san' were deleted, and other lines and gestures considered a national disgrace were taken away. Some names were changed: 'Suzuki' to 'Osuzu' and 'Count Yamadori' to 'Mr Yamadori'. We can now watch Madama Butterfly with peace of mind.

The review goes on to criticize as extreme the decision to have Pinkerton sing in English and all Japanese characters sing in Japanese when addressing the Americans: 'Is n't a a mixture of Japanese and English a little odd, like some sort of comedy routine? lt's like insisting that Aida be performed in Egyptian and Ethiopic'.

The struggle to find the'right' Madama Butterfly continued in the ensuing decades, ranging from 'purified' versions in the xenophobic late 1930s that celebrated the heroine as a 'pure-bearted Meiji bríde', the embodiment of Japanese cultural values betrayed by Western decadence, to the refusal of Japanese singers to participate in performances sponsored by the American Occupation Forces shortly after 1945. Perhaps more interesting than such productions, however, is the large number of adaptations of the opera into indigenous art forrns. Three musicale by the all-female Takarazuka Company have spanned a variety of possibilities, from a Concise 'Madama Butterfly' (1931) and a comparatively literal Chô-chô-san (1946) to the Three-Generation Chô-chô-san of 1953, a mawkishly untragic reunion of the descendants of Pinkerton's and Butterfly's son that coincided with the centennial of Admiral Perry's expedition to Japan.

By far the most successful Japanese adaptation is the 1956 Bunrakuza production of Ochô Fujin ('Madame Butterfly'), the first foreign subject treated by the ancient puppet theatre in Osaka. The adaptation's thorough transposition to a Japanese medium eliminated what for Westerners would be the essence of the opera, Puccini's music, replacing it with the traditional Bunraku accompaniment of three samisens. The preface to the printedl ibretto discreetly apologizes for the loss:

The Madame Butterly adapted by Bunraku is based on the opera. But as you know, music for the puppet theatre is unique in the Japanese classical theatre, and an arrangement for it will necessarily result in something quite different from the original opera itself. But the adaptor, the composer and the actors have done a good job in trying to follow the opera in its plot and structure, and in trying to renovate Bunraku. However, the actors are puppets and there are limits on the length of performance, and some other limitations, such as the stage setting peculiar to Bunraku. For these reasons there are some passages that are not necessarily true to the original. Please keep these points in mind. Performance time: 1 hour 5 minutes.

The Bunrakuza's desire to adapt the plot and structure of the opera to the conventions of its own medium makes the other major deletion all the more interesting. Act 1 appears to have been telescoped into a choreographed dance pantomime for the puppets, lasting some ten minutes, which represented O-Chô's dream of meeting Pinkerton for the first time, and culminated in what contemporary reviews describe as a 'sizzling kiss scene' or 'puppet clinch', accompanied by strains of 'Auld lang syne' from a solo violin borrowed from the Kansai Philharinonic Orchestra. Behind this coup de théâtre with its shocking kiss lies a fundamental alteration of perspective. Most obviously, the absence of the original libretto and music eliminated the unequal relationship between American and Japanese characters and their respective musical ambiences, around which Puccini had constructed most of Act I. The deletion of the privileged Western position established by Pinkerton's introductory aria and duet with Sharpless, as well as the elimination of the Consul from Act II, shifted the focus to the heroine, whose fate as presented by the tayù (narrator) more nearly resembles that of a traditional Japanese tragedy. The Bunraku O-Chô is not a hapless victim, the object of Pinkerton's deception, but an uncompromising subject of tragic stature, pursuing a dream of deluded passion -a form of obsessive attachment often represented by the heroines of classical Japanese drama.

The adaptations of Madama Butterfly by no means end here. Indeed,Takarazuka musicals form the background of James Michener's Sayonara (1953), whose hero falls in loye with a Japanese woman playing Pinkerton in a musical revue called Swing Butterfly, thus reimporting the story to America and beginning another cycle. The permutations continue today in works as different as the film Fatal Attraction and David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. The possibilities seem endless; indeed, it sometimes seems as if the tragedy of Madama Butterfly has attained mythic proportions, challenging the imagination in East and West to respond to its tragedy of race, nationality and gender with alternative versions of conflict - and occasionally of reconciliation as well.

Arthur Groos
pubblicato in Madama Butterfly, The Royal Opera, London, 1993