COVER DESIGN BY HARRINGTON-YOUNG |
Butterfly |
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"[Van Rij] picks his way with skill through a forest of names, rumours, and conversations. . . . The book is carefully annotated and concludes with a detailed and valuable bibliography." "A rare publication indeed—a thoroughly serious book that is not only free of all "Scholarly, fascinating, beautifully produced." Bravo! Jan van Rij has produced an intriguing and wonderful study of the real story behind the tragic operatic tale that epitomizes the West's romance with Japan. Behind the legend of Madame Butterfly . . .Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly is one of the world's most beloved operas. In this expertly researched book, Jan van Rij uncovers the secret origins of the story: the fact and fiction that have converged to create opera's iconic heroine, the doomed Cho-Cho-san. REAL-LIFE MODELS In the nineteenth century, Japanese treaty ports were home to many "temporary brides" such as Butterfly, but there was one woman in particular who provided much of the inspiration for Cho-Cho-san. Van Rij finds her through an investigation of the mysterious parentage of a Nagasaki consulate employee-a man whose double life operatically included forged birth certificates, conspiratorial silences, marriage to an adopted sister, and suicide. THE STORY The evolution of the story of Madame Butterfly is traced from its precursors to the final version of the immortal libretto. Van Rij analyzes texts by Pinkerton-esque Dutch physician Franz Siebold, sailor and travel writer Pierre Loti, and Parisian poet (and Richard Wagner's mistress) Judith THE INFLUENCES At the turn of the twentieth century, a Japanese aesthetic influenced Western artists in ways both fashionable and meaningful. The opera Madama Butterfly was inspired by many products of Japonisme: Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado; the works of Saint-Saens, Debussy, and longtime Puccini rival Pietro Mascagni; and even the impressionistic visual style of such painters as James McNeill Whistler, credited with "grafting on to the tired stump of Europe the vital shoots of Oriental art." THE OPERA After Giuseppe Verdi's death, Giacomo Puccini took his place as Italy's most venerated musician. Puccini was already an international celebrity, for his music as well as for his powerful personality: brilliant, womanizing, mother-fixated, messianic. Tormented and obsessed, he composed his greatest opera, Madama Butterfly, which then premiered in Milan in 1904 as "one of the most famous disasters of modern musical history." How did this initially catastrophic opera become perennially staged and adored? What are the secrets of Madama Butterfly's enduring fascination? And what are the reasons for its poor reception in Japan? Madame Butterfly: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San is a pleasurable and enlightening journey, from the mercantile world of old Nagasaki to the heart of modern opera: the conjunction of the tragic, ridiculous, and sublime, in life and in art. It is the perfect gift for opera lovers, students of Japanese history, and admirers of fin-de-siecle European culture. A former lawyer and European Union senior diplomat with postings in Washington and Tokyo, JAN VAN RIJ now lives in southern France. Includes photographs, charts, and a map. |
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| Other titles of interest
Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation by Helen McCarthy A Lateral View: Essays on Culture and Style in Modern Japan by Donald Richie |