Puccini Madama Butterfly opera to libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. Directed 2018 by Annilese Miskimmon at Glyndebourne. Stars Olga Busuioc (Cio-Cio San), Joshua Guerrero (Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton), Michael Sumuel (Sharpless), Carlo Bosi (Goro), and Elizabeth DeShong (Suzuki). Omer Meir Wellber conducts the London Symphony Orchestra (Leader Pieter Schoeman) and the Glyndebourne Chorus (Chorus Master Nicholas Jenkins). Designs by Nicky Shaw; lighting design by Mark Jonathan; movement direction by Kally Lloyd Jones; video design by Ian William Galloway. Directed for TV by François Roussillon; produced by George Bruell. Sung in Italian. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
Mark Pullinger is lukewarm about this production that starts off in the Nagasaki waterfront red-light district after the end of WW II but later turns “conventional” (October 2019 Gramophone, page 100.) But Mark Mandel is more enthusiastic in the March 2020 Opera News at page 52 finding the “provocative staging effective” and praising the orchestra, Olga Busuioc as Butterfly, and Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki. We can’t think of anything weak ever done by the folks at Glyndebourne with François Roussillon as TV director, and the PR shots below look great. We still don’t have a grade A review Madama Butterfly, so let’s hope this can be our first!
Here are some PR images from Glyndebourne:
Here’s a clip from Glyndebourne with the Humming Chorus emerging from a phonograph! The stage at Glyndebourne is too small for a parade:
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