4th Jul 14
In honor of the 4th of July, I’d like to discuss the most famous American character in opera, Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton from Madama Butterfly.
There are two ways of interpreting Pinkerton’s character… no, make that three. He can either be (A) a completely loathsome cad, (B) a reckless and irresponsible yet well-meaning man who doesn’t realize the depth of Butterfly’s devotion until it’s too late, or (C) a tenor who just parks and barks. So far, believe it or not, I’ve never seen Interpretation A in an actual performance. Every Pinkerton I’ve seen so far has either been a B or a C; either tried to make the character sympathetic or done nothing except sing nicely. I’ve read reviews of A Pinkertons, but have yet to see one. But which interpretation is the dominant one in the minds of the masses? A! A! A! I doubt any character in the standard operatic repertoire is more universally despised than Pinkerton. I don’t think I’ve read half as much venom directed toward any other operatic villain: not even Iago or Scarpia. Audiences love to hate them, but they just hate Pinkerton.
I have two questions. This is the first one: Why? As far as villains go, he could be worse! Does every cad in opera, or in real life, eventually feel remorse? I don’t think so! Yes, I know people tend to disdain him for running away from his guilt instead of facing Butterfly and apologizing, but better remorseful and cowardly than completely unrepentant! Besides, Butterfly is his only conquest that we know of and all he does is abandon her, nothing worse. (Honestly, why are people more willing to forgive serial womanizers and rapists like Don Giovanni or the Duke of Mantua?) And it’s not entirely his fault that she waits for three years as her money dwindles away to nothing. Yes, he lies that he’ll come back when the robins nest again, but is it fair to blame him for her still waiting long after the robins nest, instead of realizing she was duped? Nor can we blame him for her being disowned by her family – the decision to convert to Christianity was hers alone. (Yes, I’ve read John Luther Long’s novella – I know that in the book, he actively “Americanizes” her, isolates her from her family, and never expresses any remorse. But that’s the book. We can’t hate the opera character for details that the libretto changes!) And while I know some people consider his wanting to take his child from Butterfly the pinnacle of cruelty, at least he shows interest in the child by doing so! A complete monster would have denied the boy was his and left him to rot in poverty. He’s better than the majority of Vietnam veterans, who did nothing for their half-Asian offspring!
Maybe my viewpoint is skewed because my introduction to the Butterfly story was the musical Miss Saigon, which makes the Pinkerton-equivalent Chris much more sympathetic. But I’ve never hated Pinkerton. I don’t love him, far from it, but I’ve always been open to Interpretation B as well as Interpretation A. I even prefer it slightly, because it makes the whole scenario more complex and less of a black-and-white melodrama. (And because I’m American and don’t like to see my country completely savaged – it’s possible to criticize the imperialist attitudes of that era without completely vilifying us!) But not many critics agree with me! Again and again I’ve read reviews of the opera, either praising A Pinkertons or disdaining B ones, insisting that to make Pinkerton the least bit sympathetic dilutes the drama beyond repair. They seem to think we can only cry for Butterfly if Pinkerton is the world’s most repulsive excuse for a human being.
Which brings me to my second question: Why does it matter? The opera is called Madama Butterfly, not Lt. B.F. Pinkerton! She’s the one whose emotional journey we follow, who has dimensions and grows as a character, who almost never leaves the stage after her entrance, who sings three gorgeous powerhouse arias, two ravishing duets and much more, and whose musical and dramatic requirements are daunting for any soprano! And whether Pinkerton is portrayed as an irredeemable villain or just a reckless fool, does Butterfly’s fate change? No! Regardless of what the tenor is like, she’s still abandoned, still disowned by her family and isolated from her culture, still left to raise a child in poverty, forced to give up said child and left with no honorable choice but death in the end! Everything that makes the opera heartbreaking stays exactly the same in every performance, whether Pinkerton is morally black, morally gray, or just a voice on stationary legs!
In all fairness to the critics, I’ll say this: if you want to view the opera as a biting anti-American political tract, then yes, Pinkerton needs to be loathsome. I think a lot of the critics are wrapped up in the ever-popular concept that True Art Sticks It to the Man. Or else they’re so concerned about the opera’s reputation as a racist, sexist nightmare and of Cio-Cio-San as the “lotus flower” archetype at its worst that they don’t dare express too much love or sympathy for her, so they channel all those feelings into anger at Pinkerton. I definitely think Peter Fox Smith does this in his book A Passion for Opera – the Butterfly chapter is so devoted to spewing venom at Pinkerton that Butterfly herself is almost ignored, as if she were just a pathetic doll who only exists to make us despise the man who abandons her. It’s funny that these critics and professors seem to think the only way to make the opera PC is by making it revolve around the American male antagonist and reducing the importance of the Japanese heroine.
I’d honestly like to see an Interpretation A Pinkerton sometime. Maybe if I saw a tenor who made me despise the character, I’d agree with some of those critics and find the opera ten times more effective when we despise him. But as it is, I don’t think he’s worth such strong feeling. He’s not developed enough for us to feel deeply for him, but he’s not written as a monster either. He doesn’t single-handedly shatter Butterfly’s life – her own naive mistakes are partly to blame, too (which makes her much more interesting than if she were a total victim with no agency), as are both of the societies that shaped them. And the opera isn’t about him. It’s about Butterfly. She’s the opera’s raison d’etre. I just don’t see the point in wasting time raging over Pinkerton when we could spend that time investing in Butterfly instead.
Mirto P
July 4th, 2014 at 18:39
Interesting Fourth of July essay. I think it’s key that Pinkerton’s music is so gorgeous and seductive. Maybe we’re supposed to be hearing it/him through Cio-Cio-San’s ears, but I don’t think it’s that kind of ‘trick’ on Puccini’s part, as he’s pretty much a heart-on-his-sleeve composer, not one given to intricate subtext like, say, Mozart or Wagner. He is absolutely *not* portrayed musically as a monster a la Scarpia.
And yes, Cio-Cio-San, who’s usually perceived as a passive victim, does make active choices. They may be mostly wrong (maybe especially passing on Yamadori’s offer), but they are hers.
Jennifer
July 11th, 2014 at 17:19
Excellent points. I think it’s possible to forgive Pinkerton when you consider that these temporary geisha/sailor marriages were a common practice, and that the geisha, usually poor girls in dire financial straits, generally KNEW they were going to be temporary and were glad to benefit from the arrangement.
Before Long’s short story Madame Butterfly, there was Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthemum, in which a French soldier–named Pierre after the author–entered into such a temporary marriage. Upon his departure, young Madame Chrysanthemum was in floods of tears, but when Pierre turned back for a moment, the now-quite-cheerful geisha was testing the gold coins he’d left her to make sure they were real.
So if you consider that this was common and that (most of) these girls were fine with the arrangement, it ties into the B interpretation of Pinkerton. He’d have expected Butterfly to put on an act of love and adoration, but figured she’d just move on after he was gone like all the other girls did. When Sharpless warns him that Butterfly’s feelings are real, he’s probably thinking, “How naïve ARE you?! Of COURSE she’s going to act like that–it’s all part of the deal!” In his letter to Sharpless, he writes, “…and perhaps Butterfly no longer remembers me.”
Even more telling are a couple of lines in the stage play that weren’t in the short story (where Pinkerton never shows any remorse). In his letter, he tells Sharpless, “For a few weeks after we sailed, I was dotty in love with her.” Then near the end, when he returned to Japan, he told Sharpless, “I almost turned back before I boarded, but I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t do it…by now she’s testing your gold coins to make sure they’re real.’ You know that class of Japanese girl…” (Pretty much what happened in Madame Chrysanthemum!)
Even her own people can’t understand why she’s being faithful to Pinkerton. Her family was fine with the marriage as long as it was one of those temporary things, but renounce her when they see she’s taken it seriously enough to reject her old religion. Goro can’t understand why she thinks the marriage is still valid and why she won’t just move on to a good prospect like Yamadori.
So when you consider this kind of background, it can be easier to agree with the author of this one opera book I read (I can’t remember the author or title), who, to paraphrase, wrote, “How was Pinkerton to know that he got the one geisha in Japan who watched every ship that sailed into the harbor?”
Harley
September 15th, 2014 at 22:51
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website
yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you?
Plz respond as I’m looking to design my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from.
thank you
Pamina
September 17th, 2014 at 00:52
My dad hired someone to do it for me. Though I came up with the design and chose the colors myself.
Lee
September 22nd, 2014 at 21:19
Hi Pamina
I’m a great fan of your blog and applaud your most interesting musings of the character Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton.
I’ve never seen an “A” Pinkerton on stage either; I think the closest I have heard however is Tucker on the Leontyne Price/Leinsdorf recording. Even his return in Act III is all “poor me”!
Ironically, the polar opposite can be found on the other Leinsdorf recording with Anna Moffo, where her Pinkerton, Cesare Valletti, creates another category altogether in his loveable sweetness.
I don’t think either approach works – well not properly anyway.
Which is why I agree with Jennifer above. Pinkerton wasn’t the only sailor who was “marrying” a Japanese Geisha – after all, Goro has made a fine living out of arranging such trysts. The tragedy, of course, is that everybody is in on the farce apart from Butterfly, which is why we feel so sorry for her.
However …
Are you aware that Puccini revised Butterfly 5 times ? The original version (in two acts) is referred to as the La Scala version; the one we’re more familiar with is full of revisions and was premiered a couple of years after.
The first version has been recorded (rather well actually, with Maria Spacagna and Richard di Renzi with the Hungarian State Opera); not only is it longer than the “Standard” version we know, with one of the more famous melodies slightly elaborated compared to what we are used to, but there’s a lot more dialogue. Some of this dialogue, especially in Act I, doesn’t show Pinkerton in the best of light, with some very derogatory remarks about Butterfly’s culture and relatives. It’s as if originally, Puccini really wanted to show his Lieutenant in the worst possible light …
That said, I feel in my heart of hearts, the music he is given is so beautiful, that surely he cannot be that bad ?!
Much to ponder on any day, let alone the Fourth of July ! Many thanks for your own thoughts,
Lee
Pamina
September 23rd, 2014 at 14:53
Yes, I know about all the revisions to the opera. I haven’t actually heard the first version, though: only read through its libretto.
Of course musicologists disagree about whether the later changes to Pinkerton’s role were a good thing or a bad thing. Some say that making him more sympathetic makes the drama more complex and less of a sappy melodrama, like I wrote in my post. Others say it makes the drama more of a sappy melodrama by stripping away its “biting political message.”
Lee
September 23rd, 2014 at 21:16
Hi Jordan
I’m extremely impressed that you know of the revisions and have read the earlier librettos – you are further ahead of the game than I am then !
If you can, do try and seek out that recording I mentioned from the Hungarian State Opera. No, you won’t be chucking out your Karajans, Barbirollis, Serafins et al afterwards, but neither will you be especially missing them either. It’s on four CDs, so you can programme the La Scala, Paris and Brescia versions, but not the American one. To be honest, the La Scala is the one with all the real differences, with more Pinkerton in Act I and less in Act III (no Addio, fiorito asil !!), the latter point making him even less sympathetic a character. But you are right, anyone can argue either way the merits of Puccini’s revisions with regards to Pinkerton. What the revisions do achieve musically though, to me at any rate, is by slowly condensing the work further and further down, is to create an astonishing intensity to the music, something the abovementioned recording demonstrates quite well, I feel.
Next July you will have to muse upon the various endings of La Rondine that Puccini didn’t, but Marta Domingo has adopted !!
Warmest regards,
lee
Lazarus MacIntosh
September 3rd, 2017 at 19:10
Hmmmmm …
I find your musings on Pinkerton interesting in that your (admittedly skewed) viewpoint blames Butterfly for abandoning Japanese faith for her soon-to-be husband’s as her sole choice, You also discredit her as well for wholeheartedly (and naively) believing Pinkerton’s bald face lie that he will return when the robins nest again. How easy it is to blame the victim and how typical. Cio-Cio was 15, a virgin, not fully trained as a Geisha, without a father’s guidance, and madly in love for the very first time. She was most innocent. I find this view on par with blaming the child for seducing the pedophile. Pinkerton only returned to fetch his son *after* Sharpless discovers this fact and communicated to Pinkerton with such news. The Lieutenant originally had no plans to come back to Butterfly, whatsoever. Returning with Kay to fetch the child was out of cowardly guilt and not any sense of altruism. Furthermore, Pinkerton expresses remorse only when Suzuki relays that his ill begotten betrayal will surely herald the end of Butterfly’s existence. A wrong is a wrong and a lie is a lie. Full stop.
Just my thinking. Thanks.
Pamina
September 20th, 2017 at 03:39
I never meant to victim-blame Butterfly and I certainly never meant to claim that Pinkerton does nothing wrong. All I meant to do was point out the nuances of the story. Without question, her mistakes are completely innocent, understandable and sympathetic. But they’re still her mistakes, not forced on her by Pinkerton or anyone else. And I would never deny that Pinkerton is a cad, a liar, a coward and a fool. He’s just not a total monster, and I don’t think he’s worth hating so much that we ignore Butterfly while stewing over him.