OPERA REVIEW : ‘Madama Butterfly,’ With Prompter

A Cio-Cio-San who had to be prompted for almost every line. A vocally threadbare Pinkerton and Sharpless. An unenlightened stage director. A pit band consistently out of tune. . . .

It was not exactly a triumph of operatic art when the Mukungwha Opera Company staged Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” (in Italian, no supertitles) Thursday at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

As the titular heroine of Puccini’s tear-jerker, Young Sang Jung demonstrated a modest, creamy soprano, floating some nice pianissimos at the top but usually singing at one dynamic level--loud--and without sensitivity to the text. Bearing a striking resemblance to Imelda Marcos, Jung acted on a rudimentary level, restricted to stiff, semaphoric arm gestures.

Edward Ruivenkamp was an uninvolved Pinkerton; Mario Farrar, a stock Sharpless. Both sang with remnants of trained voices.

Mezzo-soprano Dong Hee Kim offered a youthful, sometimes giddy Suzuki. She sang smoothly, but with weakness at the low end of the range.

Mario Leonetti’s direction followed fan-fluttering and bowing traditions on a budget set. But he introduced dubious innovations in his staging--such as removing Butterfly from the stage for the first half of the humming chorus and keeping Pinkerton entirely off stage at the end of the opera.

Walter Unterberg conducted with energy and style, but it was unfathomable how he could tolerate the off-pitch strings, which, despite a post-intermission tune-up, ruined every lyrical moment.

The prompter, who could easily be heard feeding lines to Jung, was not identified in the program booklet.