{"id":506989,"date":"2026-01-10T21:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/506989\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T21:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T21:07:11","slug":"a-vivid-semi-staged-madama-butterfly-from-the-dallas-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/506989\/","title":{"rendered":"A vivid semi-staged \u2018Madama Butterfly\u2019 from the Dallas Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, this is the loudest Madama Butterfly I\u2019ve ever experienced.<\/p>\n

So I thought during much of the first act of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra<\/a>\u2019s semi-staged presentation Friday night, at the Meyerson Symphony Center<\/a>. Problems started with the Puccini opera\u2019s opening fugato, which wants to be busy, but not as frantic and aggressive as music director Fabio Luisi<\/a> made it. Repeatedly thereafter, Luisi whipped up orchestral sounds that challenged even big-voiced singers to be heard.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, things improved in the second act, the orchestra now setting the scene with genuine delicacies. And increasingly the vivid portrayals of the doomed dramatis personae, coached by veteran stage director Paul Curran, riveted the attention and tugged at heartstrings. Previous DSO semi-stagings have been inscrutable as often as illuminating, but this Butterfly ratcheted up emotions to devastating impact.<\/p>\n

With the cast performing on a downstage extension, minimal props included high and low tables, cushions and chairs, with some fuzzily projected stars and moon. Supertitles supplied English translations.<\/p>\n

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The men favored black suits, but Cio-Cio-San (aka Butterfly) and Suzuki wore dramatically patterned gowns from the fashion label founded by opera singer-turned-designer Suzanne Vinnik.<\/p>\n

Early on, one might have thought Jennifer Rowley overdid the Japanese eponym\u2019s clich\u00e9d mincing, curtseys and gesticulations. But until she\u2019s wed by the American Lieutenant Pinkerton, she\u2019s been eking out a living as a singer and dancer who entertains men.<\/p>\n

In Act Two she essays what she imagines to be more American manners: \u201cI\u2019m no longer the same girl,\u201d she sings. (She\u2019s initially said to be merely 15.) <\/b>In Act Three, as Pinkerton\u2019s betrayal sinks in, Rowley\u2019s Cio-Cio-San threw every bit of her generously radiant soprano \u2014 and intense physicality \u2014 into the terrible epiphany. I\u2019ll not spoil the surprising realization of her demise.<\/p>\n

As Pinkerton, Evan LeRoy Johnson seemed to drift in and out of dramatic commitment, but, well, he\u2019s a superficial opportunist. In a role that often gets edgy yelling, he supplied a potent but well-controlled Italianate tenor \u2014 although some over-loud orchestral assaults required more vocal decibels than necessary.<\/p>\n

The opera\u2019s moral centers are Cio-Cio-San\u2019s maid Suzuki and the American consul Sharpless. They\u2019ve seen it all, and, scandalized by Pinkerton\u2019s betrayal, each does what\u2019s possible to soften the blow.<\/p>\n

Manuela Custer was made up to look older than the usual Suzuki, and she didn\u2019t prettify her firm mezzo\u2019s breaks into chest voice. But she exuded decency and concern \u2014 and physical fury at the slimy marriage broker Goro. Alessandro Luongo gave Sharpless a richly textured baritone and visible horror at the impact of news he\u2019s delivering to Cio-Cio-San.<\/p>\n

Keith Jameson portrayed Goro with an aptly acidic character tenor. <\/b>Singing from the choral terrace, Kidon Choi lacked ideal menace and vocal weight for Cio-Cio-San\u2019s curse-flinging uncle Bonze, and he was oddly inert as her post-Pinkerton suitor Prince Yamadori. <\/p>\n

Neither physically nor vocally was Diana Benoit quite persuasive as Pinkerton\u2019s American wife Kate. But Hangyi Lu was irresistible as the ill-starred son of Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San.<\/p>\n

Once past the opening scramble, <\/b>the orchestra played well, if repeatedly too loudly for the singers. Luisi, nothing if not an experienced opera conductor, seemed to be gauging dynamics as if the orchestra were in a pit, not, as here, onstage. The Dallas Symphony Chorus, prepared by Anthony Blake Clark, was also too forceful in the first act. <\/p>\n

Details<\/p>\n

Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St. $47 to $216. 214-849-4376, dallassymphony.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>Don Stone, Dallas philanthropist and arts advocate, dies<\/a><\/p>\n

Stone was a lover of the arts who held leadership positions at organizations such as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Review: Jun M\u00e4rkl conducts three fourths of a fabulous Dallas Symphony concert<\/a><\/p>\n

The program smartly framed Spanish music with Spanish-inflected French music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, this is the loudest Madama Butterfly I\u2019ve ever experienced. So I thought during much of the first…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":506990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1576,1596,76314,127053,7260,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-506989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-classical-music","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-symphony-orchestra","12":"tag-fabio-luisi","13":"tag-performing-arts","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115872848060085041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}