In the most heartbreaking scene of Puccini's opera 'Madame Butterfly', the protagonist waits. A teenage geisha married to a U.S. Navy lieutenant. Even after he abandons her, she remains devoted to him. She believes he will come back one good day.
She sees his ship approaching the Japanese coast, and she and her maid ecstatically prepare their home for him. They collect flowers and scatter them in front of the door. Butterfly smears rouge on her cheeks and puts on the wedding gown she wore the night she and the lieutenant fell in love. Then she, their son, and the maid wait, looking out through a screen. The boy falls asleep first, followed by the maid. But Butterfly stays up all night waiting for her husband who never comes.
Moments like these are perfect for Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian, a highly intelligent and captivating singer who made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday. She came to New York after already achieving star status overseas, and it didn't take long to find out why in her 'Butterfly'.
Grigorian knelt down and waited, then smiled at his son, played by a touching Bunraku doll. Then she took a deep breath, perfected her posture, and reached out her hand to take Maid Suzuki's hand. As the scene progressed, her eyes looked like they were about to tear up, but she was on the verge of tears. She seemed overwhelmed by anticipation, disappointment, or both.
Opera is famous for its noble expressions, and 'Butterfly', a tragedy from beginning to end, is rich in such expressions. But Grigorian is the type of singer who behaves like a skilled, subtle actress. She blends convincingly into her character, imbuing her performance with a sumptuous lyricism peppered with empathy, sophistication and even a hint of spontaneity.
Complex characters like Jenufa and Tatiana from “Eugene Onegin” suit her well, but Grigorian’s extensive repertoire also includes Mrs. from “Sweeney Todd.” Lovett is also included, and the Salzburg Festival's stunt includes all three soprano roles in a one-act act. ‘Il Tritico’. Over the years she has risen through the European stages. In 2018, she gave her fierce and star-making performance as Salome.
But if fame in opera can happen overnight, the bookings that come from it don't materialize for five years or so. That is why Grigorian's career has continued to be focused abroad to this day. But she is often at her best in smaller European opera houses, which are half the size of the Met and where audiences can easily read the humanity of her gestures and the uninterrupted expression of her face.
At the Met, singers rely more on sound than acting to make an impression. Grigorian is able to distinguish herself in both, although the size of her voice is hardly the same as that of her future Brünnhilde, which is not easy on such a huge stage.
It also doesn't help that in “Butterfly” she entered from the back of the set behind a veil. Nonetheless, she had an amazing debut performance. Grigorian's voice is richest in the middle of its range. The lower part is unstable, but the upper part can glow or be penetrated by soft light. In her first scene, when introduced to Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, her passaggio was smooth, rising smoothly in both pitch and power. Her youthful, perhaps performative, mix of naiveté and genuine fear immediately gave her character the complexity she deserved.
In the famous aria “Un bel dì” (One Sunny Day), every line seemed to be considered without manners, as if Grigorian's Cio-Cio-San (the real name of the butterfly) was thinking in real time about her feeling of joy. , hope, challenge. She grabbed Suzuki's shoulders and tried to shake her senses of herself, shaking her body out of her blissful reverie. You believed her screams and feared her hands raised in anger.
This revival of 'Butterfly', which will be screened simultaneously on May 11, is another noteworthy debut work by conductor Zhang Hsien, music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. She led with a sensitive, fast tempo in Puccini's shifts between orientalist on-tones and love-drunk chromatics, preserving the explosive power, including the pounding, deathly drum beat, for maximum effect.
Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong played the dignified and powerful Suzuki, a humane performance compared to the tough but cold-hearted Sharpless, sung by baritone Lucas Meachem. When tenor Jonathan Tetelman fell ill, Chad Shelton stepped in as Pinkerton, who had a creamy sound but a faint mediocrity next to Grigorian's Cio-Cio-San.
Grigorian's debut is all the more impressive considering that the Metropolitan's “Butterfly,” a lavishly lacquered and mirrored production by Anthony Minghella in 2006, is the kind of show that receives the least amount of rehearsal time at the repertory house. . It already opened in January. Grigorian will only join the team for the final five games of the season. So, if this is what she looked like when she came out in her revival, just wait until she appears in her new work.
Madame Butterfly
At the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan through May 11; metopera.org.