‘Butterfly’ Lands in the Breach

Three different Cio-Cio-Sans now have committed suicide on the porch of the tilted house on the ugly hill in the Los Angeles Music Center Opera production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

Maria Ewing went first in 1991, culminating an eccentric post-nuclear interpretation that squeezed all romantic passion out of the 15-year-old Butterfly’s love for Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton.

Galina Gorchakova from the Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg stepped in for the revival in 1994, creating a one-dimensional but heroic portrait.

At least they honored the score essentially as Puccini wrote it.

Catherine Malfitano, making her L.A. Opera debut Tuesday in the role at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, honored it more in the breach than the observance.

We’re not talking about whether she took the high D-flat at the peak of the entrance aria. She didn’t. Like others, she took the lower option. Or whether she made the high notes at the end of the love duet or the end of “Un bel di.” She did, securely if not beautifully.

We’re talking about prima donna taffy-pulling, playing fast and loose--or rather slow and loose--with such things as the composer’s note values and expressive indications.

She stretched out notes and lines into bland approximations of what Puccini wrote. She made dramatic points so often that the real ones didn’t sound that much different.

Malfitano’s vocal estate has suffered in recent years. She sang with steely tone, a pronounced wobble under pressure and with gruff tone in the lower register.

She compensated by some perfervid acting that looked designed to project in a 5,000-seat house, but came dangerously close to pure ham in the Pavilion.

Poor conductor Richard Buckley, struggling to follow her, smothered the lyric Italian style. He wasn’t all that wonderful on his own, either, however. He sped through the first scene--the orchestra scrambled to keep up--and later led one of the most boring Humming Choruses on record.

Malfitano’s Pinkerton was Luis Lima, who was also making his company debut. Once one of the promising lyric tenors of his generation, Lima has unwisely pushed his voice into heavier repertory, stripping most of its sheen and bloom and leaving a woody core.

He tried hard but looked uncomfortable in the boorish, callow, amused and bemused Ugly American characterization devised originally by director Ian Judge and here re-created (as in the 1994 revival) by Christopher Harlan.

If ever there was a “Butterfly” that recalled “Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars,” this was it.

Still, when the drop curtain failed to drop on cue at the end of the love duet, Malfitano and Lima remained locked in an embrace and kissed until it did.

One benefit must have come from Malfitano’s taking prima donna prerogatives. Suzuki mercifully was banished as an accomplice in the suicide scene, one of the more offensive choices in the original production.

Twelve members of the company had been struck down that day by a respiratory virus, general director Peter Hemmings announced from the stage.

Rodney Gilfry chose to go on as Sharpless, despite some obvious vocal problems. Yet so well-seated and established is the voice and so commanding was the portrayal that his vocal problems didn’t matter that much. Was there ever a Sharpless so marked for life by Butterfly’s tragedy as Gilfry’s? Probably not.

The virus caused two changes from announced casting. Tihana Herceg sang a light-voiced Suzuki, substituting for Suzanna Guzman, who is expected to appear in the rest of the run. Tod Fitzpatrick stepped in for Dean Elzinga, singing with equal paleness the Commissioner and Yamadori, for whom he had been originally cast.

Three other singers didn’t succumb to the flu. Beau Palmer made a nervous, quietly hateful Goro. Laurinda Nikkel was a dryish Kate. Louis Lebherz boomed as the Bonze, towering over Lima and looking for all the world as if he could blow this Yankee upstart out of John Gunter’s set design without having to take a deep breath.

* The Los Angeles Music Center Opera will present Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” with Catherine Malfitano and Luis Lima on Friday, Sunday, May 29, June 4 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. and June 1 at 2 p.m. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave. Rodney Gilfry will sing Sharpless on all dates except June 4 and 7, when John Atkins takes the role. Richard Buckley will conduct. $22-$120. (213) 365-3500.