Puccini Madama Butterfly
June 2006 Reviewed by: Wes Marshall Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Madama Butterfly is one of the world’s most performed operas, and for good reason. The combination of tragic romantic calamity and Puccini’s endless melodies never fails to grab our hearts. Sir Thomas Beecham pointed out that all other composers before him, failing inspiration, would fall back on recitative, but Puccini never needed such a crutch. Never once does our interest flag; Puccini moves through a series of extended tonalities that would have frightened most of the Second Viennese School, had they taken the time to study the score. Still, the final impression is beauty; Puccini was always writing beautiful music.

Every serious opera lover has at least one recording of Madama Butterfly, so the real question is, does this one sweep all others aside? Fiorenza Cedolins is not the heart-wrenching equal of Mirella Freni, but I think she is right up there with 90% of the Butterflys captured on tape over the years. Her voice is too loud sometimes, but she’s singing in an arena, and that may be her technique for projecting to the crowd. Her acting is top notch. Marcello Giordani is a real find, a stellar actor with a strong, masculine voice. Both of the leads are too old for their roles, but the visual disjunction goes away quickly. Both Juan Pons and Francesca Franci as Sharpless and Suzuki create strong performances. As for the direction, Zeffirelli is the gold standard for opera directors, and he uses the huge stage at Verona convincingly.

As for the production, well, all true opera lovers must see a production in Verona at least once in their lives. It is sited in a Roman coliseum where gladiators once jousted with opponents that were only a little tougher than the critical listeners facing the opera singers. People-watching in the warm Italian night is as much fun as listening to the opera. Sadly, the acoustics are awful. Getting a good recording from a bad location is nearly impossible, and the TDK engineers are not miracle workers. The orchestra sounds dry (this is where a little judicious "improvement" with a Lexicon 960L would have paid off). Inexplicably, however, the singers sound wonderful. There is something breathtaking, even on a DVD, to having a wide-open sky above the stage. And the clear photography skillfully captures the light of the setting Italian sun.

As usual, TDK offers zero extras and not much in the way of a booklet.

Is there a better version? It depends. The Karajan/Freni/Domingo set is better sung, but the production is a travesty of poor lip-syncing and odd directorial choices. The Anna Moffo recording suffers from a very old and indifferent master. The Amsterdam recording is another example of stage designers and directors foisting their jaded, tired concepts on a classic opera at our expense in the name of "avant-garde." There are a couple of other possibilities, but in all, I would say TDK has the current winner.

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