A REIMAGINED BUTTERFLY
WHERE REALITY MEETS FANTASY

What is it about Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1904) that lures audiences back year after year, especially in the United States? Madama Butterfly might be one of the few canonical operas featuring an American character (Pinkerton), but it is by no means a flattering portrait of him. The answer likely lies in the beauty of Puccini’s score and the exoticism of the opera’s Japanese setting. 

How would a Japanese American experience the opera? Lyric’s Chief Artistic Officer Matthew Ozawa admits in his Director’s note to having a “deep love for this work, but it has simultaneously made [him], as an Asian American, feel ostracized” to the point of feeling “a duty to reclaim its narrative.” Whether or not Ozawa has been successful is not for us to say, since there are as many ways to experience this opera as there are people in the world. What is certain is that Ozawa and his all-female Japanese and Japanese-American creative team offer a fresh perspective on Madama Butterfly in this new co-production of Cincinnati Opera, Detroit Opera, Utah Opera, and Pittsburgh Opera.

Part of what makes this new production so refreshing is that it engages the opera’s problematic Orientalism directly and unflinchingly. Ozawa embraces Puccini’s Orientalism by converting it into the fantasy that it is through virtual reality (VR) and video games. (It might be more accurately described as isekai, a Japanese fantasy genre in which the main character is transported into an alternative world with or without the possibility of returning to the present.) Thus, before the music begins, the curtain opens on a contemporary American apartment setting. Pinkerton grabs a beer, dons a VR headset, and enters a fantasy version of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan. This framing device returns not only at the end of the final act, but at the transitions between each act. 

In the fantasy, Pinkerton meets Goro, the marriage broker, who introduces him to his three servants and his Japanese home, where he entertains Sharpless, the US Consul, to whom he talks about buying his new bride for one hundred yen. Then follows the wedding and all its gorgeous pageantry. Brightly colored wigs and shimmery silken kimonos abound. After being cursed by her uncle, the Bonze, Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San retire to their marital chamber, watched over by her servant, Suzuki. 

Following the intermission, Act II is introduced in the present-day with Pinkerton fighting his American wife before donning his VR headset again and snooping on his Japanese wife. Ozawa’s direction takes a strange turn here as Pinkerton stands on stage watching Cio-Cio-San wait for his return. Thus, he’s there virtually but not really; we can see him, but she can’t. It’s incredibly voyeuristic and somewhat creepy. Sharpless then arrives to tell her that Pinkerton has married an American when she reveals that she has a son. 

In Act III, Pinkerton brings his American wife, Kate, to Japan to claim his son, but is unable to face Cio-Cio-San and leaves Kate to do it. Realizing that she has nothing left to live for, Cio-Cio-San then commits suicide. As she does so, the action shifts to Pinkerton’s American apartment, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

The creative team includes set designer Kimie Nishikawa of design collective dots, costume designer Maiko Natsushima, and lighting designer Yuki Nakase Link. As hinted at above, the set consists of a contemporary American apartment that divides and moves to the wings, giving way to a traditional looking Japanese home. The American apartment is decorated with Japanese prints and contains a large red circular light reminiscent of the Japanese flag’s rising sun. Natsushima’s costume designs evoke not just an American fantasy of Japanese attire, but a video game version of American attire. Notice, for example, the exaggerated, abstracted shoulders on the sailor’s uniforms or the green sash built into the Consul’s suit.

Beyond the designers and director, this Madama Butterfly production also boasts a number of Asians among the cast. Above all, there is Korean soprano Karah Son making her Lyric debut as Cio-Cio-San. Her acting ranges from appropriately formal during the Act I wedding scene to relaxed and playful as an assimilated American wife in Acts II and III. The high point of her singing comes, of course, in the beloved Act II aria “Un bel di vedremo,” which rightly brought down the house on opening night.

Other Asian cast members include Japanese mezzo-soprano Nozomi Kato, making her Lyric debut as Suzuki; Korean bass-baritone Jongwon Han, making his Lyric debut as the Bonze; Chinese baritone Sihao Hu of the Ryan Opera Center; and the unforgettable character actor Rodell Rosel as Goro, a role he performed in Lyric’s 2020 production of Madama Butterfly.

Also making his Lyric debut is American tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson as Pinkerton. By turns awkward, charming, and anguished, Johnson plays Pinkerton surprisingly sympathetically. His soaring, silky tenor matches his height and attire, enlivening every scene and blending beautifully with Son’s in their final Act I duet.

I loved the new direction of this intentionally more Asian production of Madama Butterfly. Although I can’t say that it overcomes all of the shortcomings of the opera’s problematic source material, it certainly engages with it creatively and sensitively. While the VR framing of the narrative isn’t wholly successful, it does lighten the mood of an otherwise tragic tale and updates it with a more contemporary feel that might connect better with younger audiences. Let’s hope that this is just the first of many Lyric efforts to reimagine beloved, problematic operas. 

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photos by Andrew Cioffi and Todd Rosenberg

Madama Butterfly
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive
2 hours and 55 minutes, including one intermission
ends on April 12, 2026
for tickets, call 312.827.5600 or visit Lyric Opera

for more shows, visit Theatre in Chicago

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