Chailly conducts the first Butterfly at La Scala
At 112 years since its première, on 7 December the Maestro returns to the Piermarini
stage with the version in two acts conceived by Puccini for its world première at La Scala,
directed by Alvis Hermanis and starring Maria José Siri, Bryan Hymel and Carlos Álvarez.
And in the fortieth year of relations with RAI, the First Night is back on Rai Uno
On 7 December Madama Butterfly returns to La Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly and directed by Alvis Hermanis in the first version that Giacomo Puccini composed in 1904 for our Theatre. The première underlines the link between La Scala and this masterpiece, and is part of the construction process of a historic and musical awareness of the operas of Puccini that constitute one of the key cultural lines of La Scala’s programming.
Madama Butterfly
“I am now convinced that the opera should be in two acts […] The drama must run until the end without interruption, powerful, efficacious and terrible. […] I will surely transfix my audiences and send them away not unsatisfied. At the same time, we will have a new serving of opera, sufficient for an evening to hold.” With these words, Giacomo Puccini pleaded in front of a stubborn Giulio Ricordi for the innovative cut of the nascent Madama Butterfly, the “Japanese tragedy” he was composing from the homonymous pièce by David Belasco that he had seen in London in 1900, which was in turn based on a story by the American John Luther Long. The division into just two acts was the response to a need for dramatic concentration, which clearly emerged in the Zeitgeist of European musical theatre: think, for example, of Strauss’ single-act operas (Salome dates from 1906 and Elektra from 1909) which share with Butterfly the coarseness of the subject and the dramatic death on stage of the protagonist.
Puccini prevailed and the opera was staged in two acts in Teatro alla Scala on 17 February 1904 under the baton of Cleofonte Campanini and starring Rosina Storchio as Cio-Cio San. The evening, however, was not without problems: perhaps the staging was not all it could have been but there is no disputing that the enemies of the composer and his editor fomented the protests, which degenerated into a brawl (“a lynching” in the words of Puccini). The magazine “Musica e musicisti” edited by Ricordi observed: “The spectacle in the stalls seems just as well organized as that on the stage, as its beginning coincided precisely with the beginning of the opera. So much so that it was like watching an all-too-real battle, as though the Russians in the serried battalions of enemy host wished to storm the stage and sweep away all Puccini’s Japanese”, where the reference to the emerging Russian-Japanese war alludes to the supporters of Giordano’s Siberia, which was performed in December 1903. The Ricordi family was consulted and it was Tito, the son of Giulio, who suggested to Puccini that he renounce his more controversial choices and split the second act into two parts, cutting some thousand lines mostly dedicated to colourful and comical episodes, and presenting the tenor with a romance before its conclusion. The new version triumphed in Brescia on 28 May that year, but the story of the composer’s changes of mind was set to continue: apart from the two scores from 1904 relating to the Italian editions, Dieter Schickling documents two editions relating to English performances in 1906, and two editions relating to the Paris debut in 1906 and 1907 before the third Italian edition in 1907, but the picture is further complicated by the discovery of some copies containing variations penned by the composer himself. Of particular importance are the adaptations that occurred on the occasion of the Parisian première in 1907, where Albert Carré, director of the Opéra Comique and in charge of staging, insisted on softening both the anti-American features and the ridicule of the Japanese customs.
Madama Butterfly did not return to La Scala until 1925, after the composer’s death, in the version in three acts conducted by Toscanini with costumes by Caramba: La Scala thus came back into line with the great international theatres that had hailed Butterfly as a masterpiece. Nevertheless, with his proverbial innate insecurity and maniacal perfectionism, Puccini continued to mull over his “powerful, efficacious and terrible” drama and sixteen years later, in 1920, he urged Ricordi again to propose, at Teatro Carcano in Milan, a version that restored part of the cuts. In point of fact, observes Dieter Schickling, “We cannot determine which version of Madama Butterfly the mature Puccini reputed as the correct one. Every single performance in which he was involved was for him an experiment, until the end.”
The 1904 version returns to La Scala
After Turandot and La fanciulla del West, La Scala continues on the artistic-philological path that is restoring all the operas of Puccini to the author’s original intentions. Next 7 December we will hear Madama Butterfly as it was before contingent circumstances forced the musician to modify it and accept variations requested by the editor. With La fanciulla del West, too, the cuts were reopened and the orchestration of the first score was restored. It is a complex work that Riccardo Chailly is undertaking with Gabriele Dotto and the musicologists of the Ricordi Archive involved in this careful reconstruction, which must take several historical and environmental factors into consideration.
The work on Puccini is part of the latest trend of criticism, and not only in the musical sphere, of not limiting itself to examining the form of the work of art that is considered “definitive”, but to increase awareness of it by valorizing versions and variations, with the knowledge that the choice of the edition to be printed is – and was even more so in the past – subject to variable contingencies. It is not in any way an identification of an “authentic” version to be proposed in opposition to the current one; rather, it is an attempt to present a complete picture of the artist’s work to audiences. “We have long since learned that the definitive edition of an opera is not necessarily better than the previous attempts. By now wary of ‘blind faith in progress’, we have adopted a pluralistic view: the various drafts of an opera are indeed interesting in their diversity, expressions of a path that is perhaps uneven, of multiple moments in the life of the author, and in the history he is experiencing.” These words of the Italianist Lina Bolzoni are not referred to Madama Butterfly but to the edition in two volumes of the first edition, from 1516, of Orlando Furioso, rightly hailed as one of the key events in the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the poem by Ariosto and destined not to replace but to place itself alongside the 1532 version. This “pluralistic view” is also alleged in the field of musicology, and in the case of Madama Butterfly it is corroborated as much by the composer’s remaining uncertainties as by the circumstance that the version Puccini created for La Scala has never been performed in this Theatre since.
Riccardo Chailly
Principal Conductor of Teatro alla Scala since January 2015, he takes over the role of Musical Director in January 2017. He made his debut at La Scala in 1968 with Verdi’s I Masnadieri; he has since conducted operas by Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Prokofiev and Bartók; he opened the 2006/2007 Season with Aida and the 2015/2016 Season with Giovanna d’Arco. In the coming years, his commitment to the Theatre of Milan will be concentrated on the Italian repertoire with the continuation of the cycle of operas by Puccini that began in May 2015 with Turandot, the opening event of Expo and in May 2016 with La fanciulla del West. The programme also includes titles by Verdi, Rossini and Donizetti, with particular attention to the operas presented at La Scala as premières: this is the case with La gazza ladra, which will return to La Scala on 12 April directed by Gabriele Salvatores 200 years after its première. In these months, Chailly has intensified his activities with La Scala’s orchestra and created an increasingly close artistic collaboration with the musicians: after having invited some leading musicians to join up with the Orchestra of the Festival of Lucerne last August, of which he took over the reins when he succeeded Claudio Abbado, he conducted the Filarmonica in a series of tours that had successful shows in several European cities, including Salzburg, Vienna and Paris, and the Orchestra and Choir of La Scala in Verdi’s Requiem in Moscow; Requiem was performed to the same enthusiasm in Milan. On 20, 21 and 22 October, Riccardo Chailly opened the Theatre’s Symphony Season with a concert dedicated to Brahms and Liszt. During the same period he brought the Filarmonica back into the recording studio.
The show
“I do not have a style; I try to find the appropriate style for each title.” Director of prose and of opera, actor and playwright, Alvis Hermanis is one of the most multi-faceted and unpredictable personalities in contemporary theatre. Acclaimed at La Scala for the crude effectiveness of his rendition of Die Soldaten by Zimmermann, he radically changed his approach with the traditional and illustrative staging of I due Foscari: but Milanese audiences were able to appreciate a completely different aspect of his work attending Black Milk, the prose piece on rural Latvia staged at Teatro dell’Arte. Meanwhile in Paris he caused a stir with a futuristic version of La damnation de Faust in which the protagonist was an explicit reference to Stephen Hawking. Unsurprisingly, this new staging is eagerly awaited: a version that will certainly be faithful to the text, and broadly inspired by Japanese theatre.
The protagonists
With her combination of vocal confidence and stage presence, Maria José Siri has established herself as one of the most appreciated performers on the international scene. She has already played Aida in Teatro alla Scala, and with the Theatre’s ensembles and Maestro Chailly she brought the RequiemMass to the Bolshoi in Moscow last September (she will sing it again in January in Berlin with Chailly and the Berliner Philharmoniker). After other dates in 2016/2017, and her debut in Norma in Macerata, we must also mention Manon Lescaut at Teatro Regio in Turin, at Teatro San Carlo in Naples and at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Tosca at the Semperoper in Dresden and at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and Maddalena di Coigny in Andrea Chénier at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.
Fresh from a successful run at the Metropolitan as Arnoldo in Guillaume Tell in recent weeks, Bryan Hymel is eagerly awaited in the coming months in Carmen at the Opéra in Paris and in Don Carlo at Covent Garden, London. Born in New Orleans in 1979, Hymel has already played Pinkerton, incidentally at the Metropolitan, at the Staatsoper in Vienna, and most recently last summer in Orange. His first solo album, ‘Heroïque’, dedicated to French opera, was released by Warner in 2015. At La Scala, he played Don José in the staging of Carmen conducted by Daniel Barenboim in 2010.
Carlos Álvarez is on his second consecutive opening title. In Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, which opened the last season, he interpreted the role of Giacomo (replaced on 7 December, however, due to illness). He made his debut at La Scala in 1996 with Riccardo Chailly, singing the part of Sharpless in Madama Butterfly; he returned as Don Giovanni in 1999 and 2006, conducted respectively by Riccardo Muti and Gustavo Dudamel, while in November 2016 he plays Conte in Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Franz Welser-Möst.
She studied piano and made her debut in Salzburg in 2010 with Riccardo Muti: Annalisa Stroppa is a regular feature on the programmes of major theatres these days: we remember her as Cherubino in I due Figaro conducted by Muti in Salzburg and Madrid, and as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia in Rome, Berlin and Tel Aviv. She recently made her debut at the Opéra in Paris as Suzuki and at the Staatsoper in Vienna as Dorabella. At La Scala she played Emilia in Rossini’s Otello and Maddalena in Rigoletto.
Madama Butterfly radio broadcast
December 7th, h 18.00 (italian time)
Italy RAI-RADIO 3
World Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States (World of Work)
First Night on Rai Uno
On 7 December 1976 the cameras of the Italian broadcaster RAI brought Italians into the First Night at La Scala for the first time: on stage was Verdi’s Otello conducted by Carlos Kleiber and directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with the voices of Plácido Domingo and Mirella Freni. Since then, RAI and Teatro alla Scala have collaborated to raise Italians’ awareness of the extraordinary heritage of melodrama. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this collaboration, the First Night returns live on Rai Uno. As every year, RAI will also curate the live broadcasts at San Vittore Prison, in several Italian theatres and in cinemas all around the world.
Other delayed broadcast by RAI 5
Madama Butterfly will be broadcast live by:
ART CHANNEL: France and other French-speaking countries)
ZDF Germany, Austria and other German-speaking countries
RTP Portugal
ČESKÁ TELEVIZE: Czech Republic
MTVA: Hungary
RSI: Switzerland
Delayed by:
NHK TV Japan
The première extended: Madama Butterfly in the city
On the occasion of the Feast of Sant’Ambrogio 2016, the programme of preparatory activities returns for the First Night at La Scala promoted by the Municipality of Milan and Edison together with Teatro alla Scala. [look in the italian text]
The Butterfly effect in Lugano
Preparations are underway for the live performance of Madama Butterfly on 7 December at the Cinema Lux in Lugano - the LAC and the magazine Cultweek in collaboration with the Swiss National Broadcaster RSI and with the support of the Friends of La Scala in Lugano. The schedule will be announced later.