近距离内射合集

The Santa Fe Opera鈥檚 production of Giacomo Puccini鈥檚 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� is worth attending this season, if for no other reason than to experience the phenomenal vocal power of dramatic soprano Karen Chia-ling Ho in the title role. She really blows the roof off the joint.

And speaking of blown-off roofs, Jean-Marc Puissant鈥檚 set design emulates the look of yamato-e scroll paintings from Japan鈥檚 Heian-period (794鈥�1185), which used a 鈥渂lown-off roof鈥� effect (鈥渇ukinuki yatai鈥� in Japanese) to show what鈥檚 happening behind the roofs and walls of buildings. Yamato-e painters usually employed a diagonal overhead perspective, similar to a bird鈥檚-eye view, if a bird had X-ray vision.

Puissant鈥檚 main set piece is a four-post cube without walls 鈥� a typical 鈥渂lown-off roof鈥� pavilion. Technically, Puissant鈥檚 cube does have a roof, but the lack of permanent walls lets the audience peer inside, and the raked stage suggests the bird鈥檚-eye perspective. Shoji, or sliding paper doors, are added and subtracted in certain scenes, and the entire cube can be rotated, making it an incredibly versatile set piece, despite its simplicity.

The set was originally built for Lee Blakeley鈥檚 production of 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� in 2010, which was revived in 2018 (following Blakeley鈥檚 death in 2017), with Matthew Ozawa directing. This time, Filipino American director Melanie Bacaling is the one shepherding Blakeley鈥檚 vision. If you saw either the 2010 or 2018 productions, you already know what the set looks like. But it was new to me, and I was wowed by it.

鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� has been loved and reviled in equal measure throughout its performance history, as Zhen Zhang details in the essay, 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥檚 Many Lives,鈥� in the opera program. Its opening night in 1904 was a disaster, yet it has become one of the most frequently performed operas in the canon. SFO has presented it 12 times since 1957, an average of more than once every six years.

The tragic story of a na茂ve, 15-year-old geisha who kills herself after she鈥檚 impregnated and then abandoned by the American naval lieutenant, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, has lent itself to many conflicting interpretations. To some, 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� is a searing indictment of U.S. imperialism and patriarchy. To others, it鈥檚 a mishmash of damaging anti-Asian stereotypes. The current production, which is sensitively conceived but not particularly radical, is unlikely to sway opinions one way or the other.

At least Puissant鈥檚 set design and Rick Fisher鈥檚 lighting show a serious engagement with classical Japanese aesthetics. The geisha tradition as we know it didn鈥檛 start until 1751, but it borrowed heavily from courtly Heian ideals of manicured beauty, aristocratic etiquette and an appreciation for the poetry of everyday life.

By the time we get to Cio-Cio-San鈥檚 time 鈥� the turn of the 20th century 鈥� the geisha tradition is debased. Her 鈥渢emporary marriage鈥� broker, Goro 鈥� passionately sung by Taiwanese tenor Ya-Chung Huang 鈥� is little more than a pimp. Yet Cio-Cio-San still endeavors to live up to the courtly ideals of her profession. In this production, the sets and lighting make Cio-Cio-San鈥檚 formal, aestheticized world feel real. Performers are clustered inside and outside the permeable pavilion, like the geometric arrangements of figures in classical yamato-e paintings. With the opening or closing of a paper shoji panel, they become coquettish silhouettes. Pinkerton, the brash American, is a fish-out-of-water in this world.

Yamato-e, or 鈥淛apanese-style painting,鈥� was the primary visual art form of the imperial court during the Heian period. Court artists and their patrons invented the style as a way of moving beyond Chinese influences. So, instead of painting grand mountainscapes in the manner of Chinese landscape painters, they focused on intimate compositions that highlighted courtly romance and other human-centric, slice-of-life vignettes. The blown-off roof effect allowed them to treat the people in their narrative paintings as dollhouse figurines, with the sliding shoji screens concealing and revealing their hidden lives from one panel to the next.

There was a great deal of permeability between interior and exterior spaces, too. As figures moved between gardens, pavilions and interior courtyards through successions of sliding doors, they inhabited realms of extended liminality 鈥� neither fully inside nor fully outside. In contrast to the well-defined, form-follows-function spaces of modern Western architecture, classical Japanese architecture was much more attuned to the experiential qualities of the built environment 鈥� how it feels to move through them. Puissant鈥檚 set takes these design ideas to heart, and Bacaling is able to move her singers through his liminal, transitional spaces in ways that increase the opera鈥檚 dramatic tension.

Fisher鈥檚 most eye-catching lighting element is the giant light-up disc in the back of the stage, which represents the sun. It gets redder as the day wanes until it looks like the emblem of the Japanese flag. But even more wondrous is how it activates the sky and landscape beyond. This production makes full use of the SFO鈥檚 backless stage. As Fisher鈥檚 artificial sun reddens, we see the actual sky become warm and golden 鈥� or at least that鈥檚 what it did when I went last weekend. A thunderstorm would change the setting 鈥� not for better or worse, per se, but it would make the experience different. In either case, we see the same sky and feel the same breeze as the characters do in their ever-shifting pavilions. The set and lighting bring the audience into the action.

Most people go to 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� for the singing, of course. They want to hear those passionate arias. But for me, the most moving scene was Cio-Cio-San鈥檚 all-night vigil, where she waits in vain for Pinkerton鈥檚 return, at the end of Act II.

The young geisha meditates in perfect stillness and silence as the orchestra plays. What made that scene so moving was the lighting. If it had been lit brightly, it may not have affected me at all. I was already having trouble believing that a character whom Pinkerton had treated so badly could still love him. But what made me believe it in that moment 鈥� and this is a scene, again, that鈥檚 entirely static, with no singing and no movement 鈥� was seeing Cio-Cio-San bathed in a dim golden light. If you鈥檝e ever meditated on a candle flame or gone to a candlelight vigil, that鈥檚 what it felt like.

I believed I was there with her, or that I was her. In other words, I found it easy to project myself into the scene and meditate along with her, but only because of that very simple but effective bit of mood lighting.

I thought of the Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki鈥檚 1933 extended essay, 鈥淚n Praise of Shadows,鈥� in which he makes the case that classical Japanese aesthetics is defined primarily by shadows 鈥� literal shadows, but also 鈥渟hadows鈥� as a metaphor for subtlety, indirectness and poetic suggestion. At one point, he discusses the use of bright gold and silver in Japanese design, which might seem to counteract his thesis, except that such materials, he writes, were only ever meant to be seen in darkness.

鈥淎rtisans of old, when they finished their works in lacquer and decorated them in sparkling patterns, must surely have had in mind dark rooms and sought to turn to good effect what feeble light there was,鈥� Tanizaki writes. 鈥淭heir extravagant use of gold, too, I should imagine, came of understanding how it gleams forth out of the darkness and reflects the lamplight. 鈥� The sheen of the lacquer, set out in the night, reflects the wavering candlelight, announcing the drafts that find their way from time to time into the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie.鈥�

That was the effect the dim, gold lighting had on me in that beautiful scene where, at least on the surface, nothing happens. The action may be taking a pause, but the emotions only deepen.

SFO鈥檚 2026 鈥淢adama Butterfly鈥� is not a wild reimagining, like Ozawa鈥檚 production at Lyric Opera of Chicago last year, which was set in a manga-inspired virtual reality world. But it鈥檚 a staging that honors Puccini鈥檚 vision while also respecting Japanese aesthetic traditions. Neither Puccini nor his librettists were Japan experts, so they inadvertently got some things wrong about Japanese culture. And while this production doesn鈥檛 fix those inaccuracies, the set and lighting design offer a culturally informed counterpoint.

Elegant, beautiful, heartbreaking 鈥� what鈥檚 not to love?

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the 近距离内射合集. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .