Teatru tal-Opra Aurora / Reviżjonijiet

The entrance of Federica Vitali as Cio-Cio-San was nothing short of exquisite… As she flitted across the stage delicately, the very picture of modesty and vulnerability, my heart broke a little for her, knowing what would befall her at Pinkerton’s cruel, clumsy hands. It’s no mean feat to play a naïve 15-year-old who is only just opening up to the world, but Vitali made the role her own in a way I have rarely experienced locally… As wondrous as the whole show was, …nothing prepared me for the final tableau. Like something out of a half-remembered dream, as you rub the sleep from your eyes, I will never forget Cio-Cio-San, now no longer fragile and breakable but full of warrior-like triumph. Gone was the butterfly, crushed in Pinkerton’s hands, and instead, a goddess was born. Her death a picture of victory rather than sad, cowering defeat… Visually stunning and unmistakeably haunting, the Teatru Aurora’s Madama Butterfly was a triumph in every sense of the word. I encourage everyone, whether opera buffs or not, to allow themselves to be seduced by the magicians who made the 2023 Madama Butterfly a show to end all shows.

What a Madama Butterfly this was! There was a first-class cast of principals. Soprano Federica Vitali was a visually beautiful Cio-Cio-San who eagerly tries to leave her past behind her and embrace an alien culture by marrying Pinkerton. She reneges on the religion of her forebears, relatives and friends in a quite obvious clash of cultures, which runs like a thread in the entire opera. Vitali is a truly impressive singing-actress. She smoothly tackled the transition from adolescence to womanhood, retaining utter faith and hope in preserving her marriage to what proves to be a worthless man. The feverish hope at the prospect of meeting him again is pitiful because we know how it will end. This makes the latter scene with Sharpless all the more poignant as she is filled with intense joy and expectation. Sharpless does not have the heart to tell her the full truth. However, a singer like her made one join her, going against reality and final dénouement; we tend to rebel against the obvious, hoping with her that she would triumph. She did triumph in her Un bel dì vedremo. That is until the devastating truth hit home. Despairing, she could not but cling to one of her innately unchanged values: that death was better than living dishonourably.