The Gramophone, December, 1929
277
THE GRAMOPHONE AND THE SINGER
(Continued) By HERMAN KLEIN Columbia Album of "Madame Butterfly"
FORTY years ago, come next April, there was performed at the Duke of York's Theatre a Japanese play, founded by David Belasco upon a magazine story from the pen of J. Luther Long, which had already won success in New York. Its title was Madame Butterfly. Someone-I fancy i t was Comm. Tito di Ricordi-brought the l i t t le drama the notice of Giacomo Puccini, then in Lo.ndon for the production of La Tosca. It interested him enormously. He was looking out for a subject for · another opera, and he quickly made up his mind that here was what he wanted-something quite novel, a dramatic plot that appealed to him, and just the right group of characters for an opera . The affair was soon arranged with Belasco and the script of the piece handed over to Puccini's able l ibrettists, Illica and Giacosa, who were equally delighted with i t .
The composer made up his mind from the outset to lend" local colour" to his treatment of the story by imitating the method employed (if only slightly) in the score of The 1\11ilcado by Sir Arthur Sullivan and introducing into i t some genuine Japanese tunes. For this purpose, as we are reminded in the H.iVLV. publication, Opera at Home, he made use of some early gramophone records. "To this end the Gramophone Company presented him with a set of the first records ever made in Japan," and in addition he also borrowed, as we know, the theme of The StarspanglecZ Banner to typify "that devil of a Pinkerton," as the U.S. Consul Sharpless so accura,tely describes him. But I do not agree with the writer of the Puccini article in G"rove's D ictionary when he says that the composer of Butterfly "had not the geni\lS of the symphonic writer which can turn a common tune into a thing of tragedy or pathos" ; or that "the American and Japanese tunes in Butterfly remain to the end foreign elements." In my opinion Puccini utilized those elements with a fine perception of their possi bilities and blended or merged them into his own music with consummate skill. On the other hand I do agree that he was less successful in accomplishing a similar purpose in the sco re of The Girl of the Golden West, which opera he also derived from a play by Bela!Sco.
No mystery attached to the failure of Butterfly on i ts first producti.on at La Scala in February, 1904. The ~1ilanese were simply unprepared for anything so strange, so quaint and original. Beside!S, in i ts initial form.,-two acts-it was unwieldya,nd overlong. The revised version, done at Brescia three months later, brought a complete reversal of the first verdict and with i t a triumph that has proved lasting. I remember well the enthusiasm that marked i ts reception at Covent Garden on July 10, 1905, when the principal parts were sustained by Emmy Destinn, Gabrielle Lejeune, Caruso, and Scotti; and, again, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, when the same famous Italians sang i t with Geraldine Farrar and Louise Homer. Between those two productions i t fell to my lot to train the double cast of singers for the (English) first performance in America under the management of Henry W. Savage, which took place at Boston in November, 1906, and was followed by a tour of the States that lasted a year or more. Puccini came to America with Tito di Ricordi for the Boston performance and expressed himself delighted with i t . It was conducted by Walter Rothwellthen a newcomer-and the Butterfly was a charming Hungarian named Elza Szamosy, whom I subsequently heard at Budapest in 1913 in The Girl of the Golden West.
So much for the general history of this fascinating work. For my own part I prefer i t to all Puccini's other operas, though many good judges, I am aware, now consider Turandot to be his masterpiece. The dazzling orchestration and immense cleverness of the posthumous opera are wonderful; but there is no humanity, no pathos, in the Chinese story, whereas the Japanese is full of both. The latter yields a melodic line that is delightfuUy vocal, besides being supported by new and alluring harmonies in an inexhaustible variety. Turandot at times seems to me very boring, but there is scarcely a dull moment in the whole of Butterfly. Hence is i t that I welcome with unqualified pleasure the appeara,nce of a Columbia album of this familiar score, executed in Milan by Italian artists, orchestra and chorus, on precisely the same model as the Traviata, Aida, and Boheme albums that were recently issued from the same atelier. It consists of fourteen discs (28 records) numbered from 9784 to 9797.
The cast is as follows: Madama Butterfly, Rosetta Pampanini; Suzuki, Conchita Velasquez; Mrs. Pinkerton, Cesira Ferrari; · Pinkerton, Alessandro Granda; Sharpless, Gino Vanelli; Goro, Giuseppe Nessi; The Bonze, Salvatore Baccaloni; Yamadori, Aristide Baracchi; Commissioner, Lino Bonardi; with the Milan Symphony Orchef;tra, conducted by Cav.Lorenzo MolajolL
