Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Madama Butterfly

Butterfly's Entrance

Question: What do Otello, La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly have in common? Answer: In each of them, the composer has indulged in a simple device that provides the listener a great thrill at small expense. What is that device? You guessed it. Each of these operas begins with an extended scene in which only male voices are heard, then, at an appropriately climactic moment, women's voices enter the mix suddenly, producing an almost startling effect. It is remarkable, I think, and undoubtedly worthy of comment in some future article, that in each of the operas named above, the women's voices are heard from backstage.

Otello begins with the storm which sinks the Turkish fleet. The men of the chorus sing alone for some time, with a few interjections by some of the male soloists. At the height of the storm, women's voices are heard offstage in a wordless exclamation of alarm. This produces a kind of accent mark to the feeling of physical danger and agitation. While this wordless sound is not required by either the text of the dramatic situation, it adds immeasurably to the excitement of the piece.

In Bohème, the lengthy comic scene for the four principal men is entirely ended, and three of the men have exited, before we hear Mimi's voice from outside the door to the garret. The effect is electrifying, and immediately changes the entire color of the scene to the romantic moonlit enchantment with which the act will end.

The effect in Tosca is different, because here Puccini uses the female voice not to provide a transition, but to add to the drama. In the midst of the furtive and hurried exchanges of Cavaradossi and Angelotti, the voice of Tosca, calling the name of her lover, forms the last two notes of the phrase that the men are singing, thereby adding to the urgency of the depiction of the action. This is repeated several times before Mario's two long-held notes reinforce the perfect cadence which ends the agitated, terse scene between the two men and ushers in the long, serene theme which will thereafter portray Tosca and her religious faith.

Puccini modifies the device of delaying the first use of the female voice in Madama Butterfly. We hear Suzuki, who admittedly is a woman, singing a twenty-one bar passage early in the first scene. But her little arietta is dramatically an intrusion; Pinkerton shows that he is bored by it, and Goro curtly signals her to shut up. Psychologically, it is almost as if the composer were saying that it is too soon, that this is not the time for ladies to sing.

Thus, it is open to argument whether we may include Butterfly as one of the operas in which the female voice is delayed until its entrance can produce a startling effect. Nonetheless, here the device is particularly striking; first of all on account of the length and nature of the music that precedes it. When we hear the female voice for the first time in this opera, the tenor has just finished his second aria! Also remarkable is the fact that this time we hear, not just an exclamation or an interjection, but an entire aria with chorus. Puccini makes it explicit, in the stage directions that he has written into the score, that the entire piece commonly known as "Butterfly's entrance" is to be sung backstage. (This is rarely, if ever, done. Stage directors seem to think that keeping Butterfly backstage for such a length of time is inadvisable. Also, the piece is musically very difficult, and keeping the ensemble accurate when the conductor and the singers are so widely separated is not an easy task.)

A third reason for which Butterfly's entrance is particularly striking is the singular beauty of the musical material. Simultaneously with the last note of Pinkerton's second aria, the orchestra plays a theme which, in whole or in part, will be repeated many times in the course of the opera. It is ostentatiously "Japanese" in character, due primarily to the prominence of the interval of the augmented fourth with which the first phrase ends. The second phrase begins with the same three notes with which the first phrase ended, but plays them upward first and then down, thereby lengthening the ending, and emphasizing the strange interval of the augmented fourth. The bouncy rhythm of the first ten bars of the tune also contributes to the Oriental effect. Over this jaunty tune, the ladies of the chorus sing sustained notes to the syllable "ah," giving us the impression that because of the distance we cannot make out whatever words they are saying, and somehow suggesting the great open-air spaces that the views from this height command. In the eleventh bar, the tune becomes legato and leads to another statement of the striking up-and-down beginning of the second phrase, repeated twice, during which the women sing only the two notes of the augmented fourth. (This five-note motif should be remembered. It is used by Puccini as a sort of fate-theme throughout the opera. Act Three begins with a grandiose statement of it.)

At the end of the jaunty tune, the ladies are heard singing words, distinctly understandable, expressing their delight at the view of sea and sky. The tempo changes radically to very slow, and melody becomes sustained and serene, a theme of four notes portraying Butterfly's ecstasy at the prospect of her life of love. Puccini's delicious inspiration to use an augmented chord as the harmony for the last of the four notes not only gives the music an exotic perfume, but also enables him to raise each repetition of the four-note phrase one full tone higher in pitch than the one before it. This occurs five times. The fourth repetition adds a little two-note turn to the phrase after the second note, as if the theme is making an effort to become a fuller melody. (There is another change in this fourth repetition. For no discernible theoretical reason, Puccini changes the chord supporting the last note from an augmented triad to a kind of dominant seventh with lowered fifth. This very striking difference from the other repetitions usually goes unnoticed by commentators.)

The fifth repetition is exactly like the first statement. However, instead of the sixth repetition, we get what sounds like it's going to be the alternative we heard in the fourth, with its little two-note turn. But the whole thing takes a new character and blossoms into a full-throated melody of characteristic Puccinian sensuous elasticity. This is the melisma which will be the basis of the final climaxes of the love duet at the end of the act. The second phrase of this gorgeous melody starts with a high B-flat which comes out of nowhere to make the spine tingle. It is only a preview of the glorious effect Puccini has in store for us. The melody rises in pitch and intensity, and the countour indulges in longer and more gracefully curved shapes until it ends in an incandescent high D-flat.

The entire piece is unmistakably one of the most thrilling moments in opera.

William Yannuzzi

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