The first time I saw Madama Butterfly was early August 2020, as a 2017 performance at the Royal Opera House. I loved the music so much I decided to watch this version as well. This movie has taken a realist approach to depicting the story by Asian singers for the Asian roles. This choice was slightly at the cost of operatic quality, but if for the sake for top-notch voices the cast had been whitewashed and replaced by singers twice as old, I would have skipped it. This is a movie, not a live performance.
Ying Huang (Cio-cio-san/Butterfly) played the affection-starved yet goodhearted woman beautifully, if not a little stiffly at times. Richard Troxell (Pinkerton, the American naval officer) played the entitled "playboy" so convincingly I had the urge to slap him through the screen. Jingma Fan (Goro) played the marriage broker; in this version he's not only oppertunistic but also slightly malicious which was surprising but Fan played it well.
The visuals in this movie were unexpectedly beautiful. Instead of depicting the bustling harbour city of Nagasaki they chose a more rural setting with thatched houses; as it was shot in Tunisia the village is dotted with olive trees rather than pine trees. This was probably done for economic reasons, yet it never feels fake: the houses look real and lively, the gardens are lined with flowers, people are fishing for mussels in the surf. The costumes and interiors were pretty as well.
However, I think the director took too many artistic liberties. By inserting flashbacks and flash-forwards and making it appear as if days or even weeks pass between different events he interrupted the pacing of the music. He also left out about 10 minutes of music at the beginning of Act 3 ("Oh Eh ! Oh Eh !")
The cinematography was pretty during shots of landscapes and outside scenes, but during interior scenes the mostly static shots tended to make the rooms look cramped.
Despite good singers and beautiful set design, its shortcomings on both the cinematic and operatic side make this film fall short of being great. However, it is still good and I can recommend this to everyone.
