ROUTINE TEARS, CHEERS : A DUTIFUL ‘BUTTERFLY’ AT MUSIC CENTER

Most major opera companies have to play Puccini’s virtually-failproof tear-jerker, “Madama Butterfly,” for decades before it settles into a tired, dutiful, predictable routine.

The Los Angeles Music Center Opera managed the dubious feat overnight.

On Tuesday, the much-ballyhooed company had presented an uneven but often exciting, often original, undeniably new and emphatically stellar production of Verdi’s “Otello” as its calling card at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

On Wednesday, Peter Hemmings & Co. turned to what looked, for all the world, like business as usual.

There is little wrong, mind you, with business as usual. It might--just might--be boring to dine on pheasant and caviar all the time.

Still, the bread-and-butter attributes of this Italianate ritual in japonaiserie did come as a contextual jolt. Although advance publicity had led one to expect something more adventurous, the local “Butterfly” looked and sounded pretty much like standard “Butterflies” in San Diego, Des Moines, Mannheim, Alberta and Lyons.

It certainly looked like the “Butterfly” that had played the Music Center some 20 years ago courtesy of the lamented Met National Company. As far as the designs were concerned, it was that “Butterfly.”

Ming Cho Lee’s attractive, semi-stylized set and traditional costumes first traveled up and down the country with the young Metropolitan nomads. Then Chicago purchased the decors. Then Washington. Obviously, the “fiorito asil” of Cio-Cio-San’s Nagasaki has seen fresher days, but it still functions decently.

Just about everything in the Music Center “Butterfly,” in fact, functions decently.

For those who are still moved by the work per se under any circumstance, that has to be enough. The final curtain was greeted, as usual, by a sea of hankies and chorus of bravos. Thank Puccini.

The only remotely novel element in the proceedings involved the edition. Sir Alexander Gibson--the conductor imported, for some reason, from Scotland--decided to play the second and third acts without pause. That was what Puccini had done at the disastrous 1904 premiere. Subsequently, the composer split the scenes and inserted the now-famous tenor aria in the last act.

Los Angeles got the original scene fusion--which lent new dramatic tension to the marvelous, slightly expanded, orchestral interlude--yet retained the tenor’s big moment as well. Although the decision created a long post-intermission sit, the musical and theatrical gains were considerable.

In general, Gibson conducted with the stress on big sounds and high speeds. He refused to linger over the sentimental moments, resisted the cathartic effect of the great climaxes. Nothing went wrong yet little was memorable. Like Ol’ Man River, this “Butterfly” just kept rolling along.

Peter Ebert, another British import, created reasonable stage pictures and sensible traffic patterns.

His only misjudgment--and a magnificently, amusingly, trivial one--took place in Act I when Pinkerton gave Sharpless the choice of two drinks. The first was a bottle containing white liquid: presumably something unthinkable called “milk punch.” The second, clearly, was whisky. The director apparently overlooked the fact that a publisher had dropped an all-important comma 80 years ago.

The poor, put-upon U.S. Consul will take the booze, no matter what. Nevertheless, profoundly important modern research insists that he be offered milk or punch or whisky.

The success of a performance of “Madama Butterfly” depends, of course, on the protagonist, not on incidental libation. The protagonist in this instance, unfortunately, was something of a problem.

Leona Mitchell refused to play the adoring geisha as a giddy child of 15. She refrained from all but the most rudimentary Asian manners and mannerisms. She conveyed little lightness and charm, less vulnerability.

Mature dignity seemed to be what she was after. It is a noble goal, but hardly an easy or pervasively compelling one.

She might have made it valid if only her singing had been continually magnetic. The former mistress of a bright, gleaming, high-ranging lirico-spinto instrument, Mitchell seems to be striving these days for a bigger and darker sound than may be her natural wont. Sometimes she sounds husky and unsteady. Sometimes her phrasing is ungainly. In the high climaxes (excluding the optional D-flat in the entrance aria, which she omitted), she floated vowels and abandoned consonants.

There were affecting moments, to be sure, assertive moments, even heroic moments. The basic tone is still lovely. But one cannot overlook certain vocal-danger signals. Something seems to be going wrong with a prodigiously endowed artist who should be at the very peak of her career.

Neil Wilson, her baby-faced all-American Pinkerton, introduced a sweet tenorino pressed by Puccini to its very limits and, perhaps, beyond. Peter Glossop, another unnecessary British import, brought a crusty and sympathetic demeanor to Sharpless’ character, a frayed baritone to his music.

The supporting cast included Alice Baker as a strong Suzuki, Ken Remo as a sly, parlando-oriented Goro, Rodney Gilfry as a stiff Yamadori and Michael Gallup as a nasty, reasonably imposing Bonze.

Paul Moor’s overly detailed supertitles, projected miles above the false proscenium, caused many a pain in the neck on the orchestra level.