- from "Fu-in" (dentsu online) -
"Madama Butterfly" 100 Year Anniversary by OKAMURA Takao
Among the many famous opera numbers, Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" is the only opera that introduces our country Japan to the world. I call it a real masterpiece in that it has done so with more influency than could any number of diplomats. And this year happens to be the 100th anniversary since its first performance in public.
During my days as exclusive singer to a theatre, I was kept to the role as Bonzo the Priest. This character had a chonmage hairstyle, and was always grasping a torii (*a sacred arch: gateway at the entrance to a Shinto shrine) in one hand, on which was reversely inprinted "kyo-ge-ren-ho-myo-mu-nan (*in correct: nan-mu-myo-ho-ren-ge-kyo)". The Madama Butterfly cast would enter the house without removing her shoes, one could see Mt. Fuji beyond the Nagasaki harbour!?...
as goes on with other such details, quite unbearable for any Japanese citizen to see without frustration. This goes without exeption to other performances I have known so far, since they must have been following the original script all the way. As a matter of fact, Puccini and his librettists had it all wrong in the first place. The names of certain characters were called "Oma-ra" instead of Ohmura, "Sarunda-shiko" instead of Saruda-hiko.
Shintoism prayer phrases are chanted in front of a Buddhist altar, Butterfly takes out a statuette of Buddha from her sleeve to show her husband, geisha-girls dance and sing in the city streets as money beggars, and there is a mentioning of a "Wise Ocunama" who was believed to be preaching about the power-wonders of a smile. I do not blame them, as our country Japan at those days had only just begun to be recognised from their side of the world.
Anyway, this kind of performace has been going on for a hundred years. I made countless efforts, strongly demanding foreign theatres to pay some respect, but nobody would listen. I doubt their manners would be the same if errors were pointed out to a performance featuring some other western nation! It seemed to me that they felt little interest whether or not some misinterpretation ever took place about some asian land that was anyway so far away beyond their recognition.
But to my last disappointment, I found even domestic shows to be performed with the same misunderstandings about our country! Most of them were and still are performed in the original language. Just think of it... Japanese singers singing the Latin scripts without doubt, and our Japanese audience looking at the Japanese translated subtitles running above or somewhere else on the stage... so humilating!!
Last year, we took the advantage of being the very first (I believe) to perform the revised edition of this famed masterpiece, but most media resources did not bother to make any coverage, maybe because we happen to be just a small sized NPO. We are planning our second performance this October again, with hope and view to enroll the world to be entertained with this masterpiece, finally remolded with the true features of the concept, within the next hundred years!!
June, 14, 2004
(OKAMURA Takao : Opera Singer)
