Do Not Miss Madama Butterfly at the MET This Season

[maestrob]

This is an unabashed plug for the most exciting Butterfly presentation we've ever seen! The performance at yesterday's 3PM Metropolitan Opera matinee shone with brilliant touches and thrilling singing and conducting! Oh, yes, the production is the now-familiar one with puppets and many lanterns.

The cast was led by the extraordinarily talented Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, who wowed us with both her passionate singing and her stirring acting skills. Matthew Polenzani also did himself proud with extraordinary singing and acting, conveying both Pinkerton's callous and shallow nature in the opening duet with Sharpless, and his terrible remorse three years later as he returns to claim his son with his American wife, Kate. Davide Luciano proved himself worthy of the dramatic and vocal subtleties of the demanding baritone role of Sharpless, all ably supported by the stalwart mezzo Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki.

The conductor, Derrick Inouye, inhabited the score as if he had written it himself, and I could not fault a single bar.

For those in far-flung regions, BUY THE DVD if it comes out!

This is the Butterfly against which all others should be measured in this century!

Aleksandra Kurzak is scheduled to sing all her performances in January 2024.