OPERA REVIEW : An Earthbound ‘Butterfly’ : Russian Diva Brings More Flap Than Flutter to Puccini Tear-Jerker

If all had gone as planned, the picturesque production of “Madama Butterfly” that opened Wednesday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion would have looked and sounded pretty much like the version first presented by the Music Center Opera in 1991.

Ian Judge’s staging scheme, a streamlined if essentially conservative perspective of Puccini’s immortal tear-jerker, was to be revived, after a fashion, within John Gunter’s faintly stylized, crimson-framed set.

This, you may recall, is the “Butterfly” in which the let’s-pretend natives of turn-of-the-century Nagasaki are allowed hardly any rituals of japonaiserie as they go about their quaint business on a distant ramp and precariously tilted terrace atop the exotic sand dunes of Laurel Canyon. The central image, not incidentally, leaves the local viewer worrying as much about mud slides as about tragic sacrifice in the culture clash between innocent East and wicked West.

For better or worse, this “Butterfly” was created as an anti-type casting vehicle for Maria Ewing, who played the title role as if she were constantly teetering on the brink of dazed dementia. Ever original, sometimes eccentric and deliciously unpredictable, Ewing was supposed to return to the heroine’s many agonies and few ecstasies on this occasion. She withdrew, however, when more pressing duties called her elsewhere.

In her place, the management drafted Galina Gorchakova, leading soprano of the beleaguered Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg. All Butterflies, she emphatically proved, are not created equal.

According to the libretto, Cio-Cio-San is a fragile teen-ager--intrinsically delicate, instantly adorable, automatically pathetic and ultimately heroic. According to Gorchakova, she is heroic. Period. The sound at her command is dark yet steely, and sometimes edgy. The top notes cause her no problems, though it should be noted that she chose Puccini’s lower option at what would have been the crest of the entrance aria. (Through an interpreter, she had promised a high D-flat in a Times interview; perhaps something got lost in translation.)

Gorchakova tries, occasionally, to sing softly. She is most imposing, however, when she can open up, and she rises with ease to the rigors of renunciation in the final scene. As an actress, she settles for textual generalities and goes conscientiously through the basic motions dictated by tradition. Diva to the end, she remains bigger than life.

Unfortunately, poor Butterfly should be smaller. For optimum impact, the soprano attempting this grateful challenge must caress the line with tenderness and shade it with sensuality. She must convey passion as well as trepidation, fear as well as faith. She doesn’t have to be vulnerable, but she must seem vulnerable.

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The illusion isn’t a matter of physical size. It is a matter of focus. We have seen some convincing Cio-Cio-Sans in the past who tended toward the hefty--Victoria de los Angeles, Renata Tebaldi and Antonietta Stella spring to mind. Nor should one pretend that an idiomatic Butterfly cannot emanate from Russia. The feverish Galina Vishnevskaya certainly made her mark.

Gorchakova is a formidable presence. She knows how to command center-stage. Tough and cool, she makes a mighty noise. It would be interesting to see her in the Slavic repertory. She might be terrific as the glacial Princess Turandot.

But the verismo geisha is another matter. A Butterfly who would rather flap than flutter is a Butterfly in trouble.

Ironically, the Music Center authorities surrounded their heavyweight protagonist with a lightweight cast. This was the sort of lineup we used to expect from the New York City Opera--which did not charge $105 for a good seat.

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An obscure but promising American tenor named Marcus Haddock introduced an impetuous, handsome, properly caddish Pinkerton equipped with a slim figure and voice to match. One hopes he resists the temptation to force for impact.

John Atkins, definitely a junior-diplomat Sharpless, repeated the sympathetically nerdy and nervous portrait admired here in ’91. Paula Rasmussen graduated with honor from the minor duties of Kate Pinkerton to the slightly less minor duties of Suzuki, now the heroine’s hara-kiri accomplice as well as faithful servant.

Mallory Walker was the restrained, well-sung Goro, Michael Gallup the huffy-and-puffy Bonze. The others tended to fade into the canvas woodwork.

Christopher Harlan, the director-on-duty, did what he could to press the action forward on Gunter’s awkward set, and he motivated the movement deftly. Too bad he couldn’t have spared us the Grand Guignol theatrics inherited from Ian Judge in the finale.

Randall Behr, maestro for all seasons if not all reasons at the Music Center Opera, conducted like a man in a hurry. The singers and the expanded Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra often kept pace with him. Loudness, in any case, triumphed over finesse.

This, not incidentally, was the third time the Music Center has staged “Butterfly” since 1986. The company has mustered two different “Boheme” productions, and “Tosca” on two occasions (three if we include a Berlin import). “Turandot” was seen during the Olympic Arts Festival, and “Fanciulla del West” turned up in 1991. So much for Puccini.

Meanwhile, we have had one--repeat, one--Wagner production. That was a “Tristan” seven years ago.

Balance, anyone?