Opera review: a routine Madama Butterfly that lacks heart

**

Puccini's Madama Butterfly is one of those operas the public can't seem to get enough of. The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre has been open since March 2010 and opera appears only once or twice a year in its schedule, but this Moscow State Opera production of the work, which opened its five-night run on Wednesday, is the second to have visited the venue.

The full name of the Russian company is the Moscow State Opera and Ballet Theatre for Young Audience Named After Natalia Sats. Sats, who died in 1993 at the age of 90, founded the company and made it famous for coaxing no less a piece than Peter and the Wolf out of Sergei Prokofiev in 1936.

The great lady herself is credited as the original director of this Butterfly, and the production now seems tired, in spite of credits for revival designers Stanislav Fesko (sets) and Natalia Osmolovskaya (costumes), as well as a revival director, Valery Merkulov.

The use of so much metal tubing in the construction of the set jars from the start, especially given the lack of subtlety in the consistently unsympathetic lighting by Sergey Martynov.

Cio-Cio San’s traditional Japanese house remains plonked in the middle of the stage throughout. No meaningful attempt is made to open it up to our gaze and take us inside the abandoned woman’s world as she awaits the return of the callous Pinkerton.

All this would not matter so much if the singing and music-making were of a style to distract from the chilly emptiness of the visuals. But much of the singing falls into the category of heartless routine.

If you come to this production in search of thrilling Russian voices, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed, and conductor Alevtina Ioffe doesn’t do much to raise the emotional temperature. Her approach and the playing of the orchestra is on the heavy-handed side of efficient.

The star attraction, of course, is not Russian at all, but Irish. The Cio-Cio San is soprano Celine Byrne, who commands a vocal heft and tonal allure that is otherwise in short supply. But she is not what you would call a sympathetic Butterfly. She sings very well, but she fails to convey the necessary vulnerability.

That said, the temperature does warm up in act three, as the Pinkerton of Ruslan Yudin finds a secure presence that eluded him earlier, and the Suzuki of Margarita Belousova shows an extra degree of compassion.

Don't be surprised to hear conflicting reports about these performances. The opera is double cast (triple cast for the role of Pinkerton), with Anna Necheva taking over from Byrne on Thursday and Saturday.