How Madama Butterfly changed a 7th-grader's life

Spoiler alert: the 7th-grader to whom I refer? That was me. In 1964. Here's the story.

I was a piano whiz-kid growing up in the Chicago suburbs. Practiced three hours a day minimum (sometimes as much as six or seven); participating in Chicagoland piano competitions (winning some of them) and spending an undue amount of leisure time listening to Horowitz, Serkin, Cliburn, Gilels and other keyboard giants of that era.

Nichols Middle School, Evanston IL

I'd had a fascination with Menotti's TV opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, but I don't think I associated it with "grand opera". My parents had opera recordings and the music of The Marriage of Figaro was familiar to me. But I was all in on piano, piano, piano. This was my turf; my forte; my identity. I didn't have a lot else going for me: bad at sports, poor health (serious asthma) shy and introverted with few friends. But I could play the piano, my friend!

So I took a fairly cavalier attitude toward my music appreciation class at Nichols Junior High School in Evanston Illinois. Music? Hey - I own it. Maybe these other kids need to know all this stuff, but I'm cool, thanks very much.

Then came a unit on opera.

In preparing to write this post, I called the school office to see if they could help me find out who taught music in 1964. None of the names sounded instantly familiar, though it may have been Carol Webster. That name stirs a vague memory. Let's proceed on that assumption.

Ms. Webster chose Puccini's Madama Butterfly. I can't tell you much about what she said about it, because (oh, the shame) I paid no attention. Looked out the window. Day-dreamed.

Opera?! Chopin didn't write any stinkin' operas. YAWN.

I regret to inform you Dear Readers that <COUGH COUGH> I received a shockingly low grade on the Madama Butterfly unit quiz.

My mom was not pleased. She wasn't paying money to the best piano teacher in the area for me to bomb any music test! She marched me straight into Ms. Webster's office and said "What can we do?" Then this teacher said something remarkable.

Something that changed the course of my life.

She said "If you will go purchase a recording of Madama Butterfly and if Glenn will study it on his own, we'll work something out", or words to that effect. We went straight out to the local record shop (AH -MEMORIES OF RECORD SHOPS!!!) and bought the London recording with Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi and Tulio Serafin conducting.

Once I actually listened to the music, I was a goner. I especially swooned over the fresh, smoothly lyrical sound of Bergonzi's tenor. I sang "Addio fiorito asil" in my adolescent's tenor over and over, doubtless driving even my opera-loving parents a little nuts.

And then! Some months later, my dad had a business trip to New York. To indulge his son, he got the two of us tickets to see Butterfly at the Met. The old Met, mind you - no Lincoln Center yet. The cast included Renata Scotto, Mario Sereni as Sharpless, and a house tenor named Barry Morell as Pinkerton.

Three distinct memories of that performance:

• In the moment of Act 1 in which Butterfly shows Pinkerton her personal items including a vial of makeup, he expresses disapproval, causing her to throw it away with the word Via!  Scotto tossed the round make-up case onto an ornamental pond. However, it wasn't a real pond, but simply blue paint on the stage surrounded by a garden. So the case spun like a top for what seemed an eternity before it finally came to rest on the "water". The scene proceeded: the wedding, the Bonze, the love duet, -- and my eyes stayed transfixed on that damn make-up case as it sat there, unheeding of all the drama.

• Speaking of the love duet, there was an old-fashioned moment of true diva-ness. Just as the music was turning very passionate, Butterfly left her groom at the rear of the stage and slowly made her way downstage as far as she could go. Once there, she opened her arms wide as if to embrace us all and sang to her adoring public. Pinkerton could have been checking his email, if they'd had email back then...

• And then there were the curtain calls. I've never seen anything like it before or since. Scotto came out for solo bows five times... ten times... fifteen times... twenty times... twenty-five times... seemingly forever. The whole ritual became surreal, like something in a Fellini film. To me, it lost all meaning. Did she really enjoy it after the first half-dozen? What drove these people to such a display? What forces were at work here?

In short, my introduction to Puccini, both in the classroom and in the theater, are the reason I'm now an opera educator, opera composer and, bless me, an opera blogger.

Obviously, Madama Butterfly was my favorite opera for a period of time. Gradually I added the other Puccini titles, then my desert island list to include many others. Butterfly is no longer my favorite opera. I find the lack of balance in the cast to be a flaw that weakens the overall effect of the drama. Certainly, the title character is one of the great achievements in creating a compelling role for a lyric spinto soprano. But the rest of the principals suffer: Pinkerton's solos are undistinguished, and not stand-alone arias in any case; they're really duets with Sharpless. And speaking of Sharpless and Suzuki, they're relegated to dialogue and ensembles only. So the work as a whole strikes me as a bit top-heavy. For many years, my two favorites have been Falstaff  and Le Nozze di Figaro.

But I retain nostalgic affection for Puccini's tale of love and betrayal in Nagasaki, as well as respect for its astonishing craftsmanship. 

Thanks, Ms. Webster. Like most good teachers, you changed a child's life for the better.