By Alison Zheng

When a family friend dragged me to a production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” at my local opera house at age 7, I never could have imagined it would lead to a decades-long obsession with the “dying” art form. Of course, as is the case for many others, “Madama Butterfly” was my very first opera — and a poignant one at that. However, just as I’ve grown up listening to tenors belting out the most remarkable arias, I’ve also grown up as an Asian American woman in the predominantly white state of Ohio. Evidently, “Madama Butterfly” was not exactly the Asian representation I had been looking for. 

This past week, I sat down with stage director Melanie Bacaling and mezzo-soprano Nozomi Kato to discuss their roles and perspectives on the Pittsburgh Opera’s new production of “Madama Butterfly,” produced by Matthew Ozawa. As Filipina and Japanese artists respectively, their understanding of this new undertaking of Puccini’s masterpiece doubly intrigued me.

Bacaling is the Associate Revival Director for “Madama Butterfly” and the first Asian American woman to direct at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Nozomi is a mezzo-soprano singer who lived in Spain for 10 years after studying opera under her mother, also an opera singer. She spent seven years in Japan studying singing at the university level and then traveled to Italy for three years before ending up in Spain for a young artists program.

Did you have any prior experience or knowledge of Madama Butterfly before working on this specific production?

Melanie Bacaling: My first time working on “Madama Butterfly” was a Santa Fe production, which was super traditional (and actually produced by Matthew Ozawa as well), but designed by an all-white team. When I arrived at the Boston Opera, we created this thing called the “Butterfly Process,” where we considered the rise of Asian hate and really grappled with whether we wanted to continue producing our production. We concluded that just canceling it wouldn’t help anything – and that there was a benefit to interrogating the capital “W-H-Y.” For the Butterfly Process, we pulled from historians, scholars, activists, and artists to produce an entirely new production that interrogated the piece even deeper. 

Nozomi Kato*: I had already done almost 10 productions of “Madama Butterfly” in Italy, and I also performed it in Spain and America. My role of Suzuki is quite sad, and she’s always with Butterfly/Cio-Cio San (the protagonist). In most productions, Suzuki is not present in most scenes without Butterfly, whereas in this specific production, she 

can actually be seen and is included in Pinkerton’s duets. She understands Cio-Cio San’s life as well as her convictions, yet she cannot do anything to help her mistress, so she feels deeply sorrowful about this — which is fully portrayed in this new production. 

As an Asian woman, what were your initial perceptions of the story?

MB: Although there are some beautiful arias, I really thought about this opera for a long time, and something wasn’t sitting right about it for me. In most of the productions I saw, all these Japanese characters were portrayed by white people. It wasn’t quite yellowface, although there was some “shuffling” going around with hair and makeup styling, which also didn’t sit right with me. I was interested in Matthew’s production and his team of designers, who were all Japanese women, as well as their own experiences with “Madama Butterfly.” A lot of us felt that Japanese women were not adequately represented in most productions. Puccini and his librettist never set foot in Asia, and while this opera could definitely be seen as appreciation during the time of its conception, we now know that this is not the case in the modern age. I had some amazing dialogue with this team, where we feel like we’ve put this story into a framework that authentically represents the white male gaze. 

NK: The story itself is actually fairly traditional. The story isn’t changed — so the words, the arias, the libretto – none of that has been changed. However, the setting is now within a VR video game, which makes the production quite interesting and new. It wasn’t difficult for me to sing in this production, and it makes me happy that all Japanese creators were involved in it. In Italy and Spain, I would sometimes wear a “kimono” [air-quotes], because they didn’t know what a real kimono looked like. This production has a costume designer who is Japanese, so she knew exactly what to do, and what an actual kimono is. I’m so happy to be singing as Suzuki with this cast!

What were some of the challenges in producing this staging?

MB: This was a very technically complicated show, although the lighting and set design are very beautiful! It fully creates a world that expands from a little apartment unit, which we actually used the proper proportions of a normal Japanese apartment. The costumes and wigs are also so elaborate and are directly inspired by various Japanese video games and artistic movements. Putting the story into a very particular framework has also been its own challenge. We interrogate moments, thinking, “Did it read well that time; how do we make it read better?” The challenge is keeping the goals of the staging fresh and not falling into it being a routine or being robotic in any way. 

NK: The last scene for me is the most difficult part, especially since there are many times [when] it makes me cry or want to cry on stage. Even yesterday, when we were doing the orchestra rehearsal, I also cried during it. 

What elements do you believe are essential for making opera more accessible and relatable to a younger, more diverse audience?

MB: A lot of it revolves around not ignoring how the story is interpreted by a wide variety of audiences. What it takes is sitting with a text and not just the music and asking how a certain scene might be interpreted in the eyes of 2025. We need to sympathize with characters, like for example, Musetta in “La Bohème.” While she is sometimes played very much into the text as a high-strung, fickle, superficial, and surface-level woman [who] can oftentimes seem like a caricature of a woman, in a production I was with we had her come out as a powerful and confident woman. When playing a game with Marcello, she is fully in control and empowered, driving into her backstory as well. To make opera accessible, we must create honest characters as much as we can, which involves trusting and interrogating the score. I always ask if the community feels represented in what I am producing. I think Matthew did well with this, as the main singer of this production has stated that she has never felt this represented in previous performances of “Madama Butterfly.” 

What are your aspirations for future productions of opera?

MB: I am actively working against the idea that opera is dying. Although, if we continue with the way we’ve been operating for a long time, then there really won’t be much longevity to it. There is a lot of work being done internally through a lot of intentional artists and administrators right now to make this art form continue to stay relevant and highlight its beauty and history. Opera is absolutely an art form that is worth surviving. Opera is the height of storytelling — the athleticism of singers, the branching of the score, the grandiosity of the set and costume design, and the collaboration of it all. It is so special to preserve an art form that is so innately about collaboration and community, especially in a society that is increasingly fear-based and individualistic. To go into the future, we have to keep in mind the audience we want to cultivate and cultivate them. Even more important is not necessarily focusing on the final stage product, but also on our rehearsal and production methods. How do we take an art form rooted in white supremacy and colonialism and decolonize that in the way we create? We approach things with more humanity at its center and make sure people feel seen and heard in the rehearsal room. There’s so much great talent and beautiful humans, so there are many reasons to be hopeful.

NK*: I hope many people can come and watch this opera, as it is one of the most famous in the world. For someone who hasn’t seen or known opera, they can certainly try by seeing this production. The production is set in a video game world as well, so younger people and audiences might be more interested in how this production differs and relates to them. Even my character, Suzuki, has green hair! The chorus singers look beautiful too. 

*Portions of this interview were conducted in Japanese and translated into English.

 “Madama Butterfly” will be performed at the Benedum Center from March 22 to March 30, 2025. Discount tickets are available for Carnegie Mellon students.