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Rating: A Tiny Tiny Butterfly
Taking a masterpiece like Giacomo Puccini's Butterfly opera and transforming it into a living album, with virtual images, hi-tech music, and a handful of live midi performers, presenting it in a small theater in Rome (Piccolo Lirico-Teatro Flaiano), located on a small street behind the Pantheon, and having as the main character a 19-year-old Cio-Cio-San (the same age as Puccini's heroine when Pinkerton returns to take the child born from their relationship when she was just 15) is the essence of a reinterpretation that, in the spirit of everything "tiny", I found truly "great". First of all, because of the great means made available for an opera performance that, ignoring the entirely "grand" tradition, has outclassed the stale mammoth representations of the venues assigned for these performances, incorporating into the scenic and musical realization every possibility of new technology. Even the price was small compared to those proposed by the box offices of institutions and opera theaters, for a result that I would say is very courageous and convincing. It was striking to see in the orchestra pit three young ladies and a young musician perform almost the entire score as first and second violins, brass, and strings, in addition to the oriental colors desired by the great Giacomo Puccini. But nevertheless, this tiny tiny Butterfly captured my heart and ears, and the evening passed quickly and pleasantly. The daring artists (I think about how the critics who frequent the Teatro dell'Opera or La Scala will deem this operation blasphemous) alternate performances of "Madama Butterfly" with "Tosca" until May 30, 2009. And as I was told, for this last title, they have already surpassed a hypothetical Guinness World Record with more than three hundred performances, which for those who understand opera productions is truly exceptional.
Carola Lani
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