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96LEAD SINGERS TAKE FLIGHT IN ‘BUTTERFLY’ - LIM AND HENDRICK CARRY THE SYRACUSE OPERA PRODUCTION OF 'MADAMA BUTTERFLY' "A pair of stellar singing and acting performances by the two principal roles helped Syracuse Opera's production of "Madama Butterfly" pack an emotional wallop. I only wish I owned the Kleenex tissue concession in the lobby… Michael Hendrick as Pinkerton has a powerful voice that loses no steam in its high register and that can soar well above Puccini's sizable orchestral accompaniment, as in his "Dovunque al mondo" of Act 1 and the "Love Duet".
"Janacek's depressing story centers on Mila (Christine Abraham), who has an out-of-wedlock child with the composer Zivny (Michael Hendrick) and has been kept away from him by her mother (Linda Roark-Strummer). "Zivny, thinking Mila has betrayed him, composes an angry opera that is a fictionalized account of the events, then reunites with her at the spa where they first met. Four years later, after the pair marry, the mother visits them, gets into an argument, and the mother and daughter go over the balcony to their deaths. "The final act is set 11 years later, when an excerpt of the opera is in rehearsal, and the students realize the still-unfinished work is about the composer's life. The opera closes with sort of a male Libestod, with Zivny collapsing while fixated on the image of his dead wife. "Abraham, looking gorgeous in red dresses, was impressive and intense as Mila, dominating the stage whenever she was on it, and Hendrick and Roark-Strummer also gave highly polished accounts." (Published July 25, 2003, Performed July 25, 2003)
