BWW Reviews: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Arcola Theatre, August 26 2015

It's hardly a spoiler, but it's still a surprise to see Butterfly's wedding dress stained with the blood that will inevitably spill once US Naval Lieutenant Pinkerton decides to treat a Japanese woman like a Japanese house - to be bought on a contract that he cancels every month. Butterfly is also on stage throughout the the opening discussions, when Pinkerton shows his true colours, a ghostly Miss Havishamesque presence, her death pervading the action rather than climaxing it. Director Julia Burbach may have radically reframed the opera - and why not - but I'm unsure that the decision to give the innocent, credulous Butterfly all this knowledge helps us understand her blind love for a complete bastard.

If I'm sceptical about this interpretation of Puccini's great work, I'm completely convinced by the singing, utterly thrilling close-up, accompanied by Paul Wingfield's beautifully played piano. But he's no match for such voices! Natasha Jouhi (Butterfly) is almost the last of this tremendous company to sing, but her soprano fills the space with passion, underpinned by melacholy and just enough anger, immediately transforming from spectral to sensual. Thomas Atkins's swaggering Pinkerton is a perfectly pleasant tenor, but Gareth Brynmore John takes the plaudits amongst the men, his baritone voice carrying more conviction than Sharpless' s weak response to Pinkerton's cruelty. (I always want to jump on stage and shout at Sharpless to "Just do something!" in the hope that he'll rescue Butterfly and Suzuki - of course, he never does.)

By stripping back the music and placing Butterfly in every scene, the Japanese wife becomes more of a symbol than an individual, a woman who stands for all women driven to misery by their love for neglectful, cowardly men. Perhaps too, she represents the tens of thousands of residents of Nagasaki, her city, killed 70 years ago this month by another powerful, heartless American visitor. We may, of course, draw our own conclusions from this most distressing, yet captivating, work.

Madama Butterfly continues at the Arcola Theatre until 29 August, with seats just £15 (which is worth paying for the celebrated aria, Un Bel Di, alone).

Photo Robert Workman