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At Palladium's 'Butterfly,' big turnout hears a soft voice

By JOHN FLEMING
Published June 13, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Nothing warms the heart of a performer like the sign that was posted Sunday afternoon outside the Palladium Theater: "Sold Out."

Palladium executive director Mark Spano said that 880 people turned out for Puccini's Madama Butterfly , staged by Sunstate Opera with the FloriMezzo Orchestra. This came after a Saturday night performance that drew 800. Obviously there is a market for modestly priced (the top ticket was $15) opera.

The Palladium actually has more than 900 seats, but quite a few weren't sold because their views were obstructed as a result of the unusual setup onstage. The theater doesn't have an orchestra pit, and the 35-piece orchestra occupied stage right, separated by a low wall from the set that filled stage left with a footbridge and Butterfly's house overlooking Nagasaki harbor. Mark Sforzini, making his opera conducting debut, worked from a perch in front of the stage.

Audience members could enjoy Sunday's matinee if they weren't too picky. Julia Coulmas, the soprano in the title role, had just the right Japanese-doll delicacy for Puccini's tragic prima donna, and she moved gracefully with appropriately ritualized arm and hand gestures. But Coulmas has a small voice. Though her phrasing and placement were sometimes exquisite, she had trouble being heard, even as Sforzini constantly signaled the orchestra to play softer. And a performance that can't be heard is uninvolving.

Coulmas started out singing too carefully, but by the time she got to Un bel di , Butterfly's famous Act II aria to faith, the passion was there, if not the volume. She had some good moments in ensemble numbers, such as the flower duet with Suzuki, played by Barbara Carroll, though the contrast between Coulmas' dainty warbling and Carroll's belting mezzo-soprano was dramatically out of whack.

Tom Accardo was a less than memorable Pinkerton, with a reedy, colorless tone that strained a bit at the top. The most consistently satisfying principal was the Sharpless of Lothar Bergeest, whose strong singing communicated the essential decency of the U.S. consul. Gary Nissen's Bonze was suitably fearsome. (The Saturday performance had different singers in three leading roles: Sara Peeples as Butterfly, Barron Garriot as Pinkerton and Pat Agnu as Suzuki.)

Sunstate Opera artistic director Mario Laurenti took a conventional approach to iconic scenes like Butterfly's vigil to the ethereal humming chorus. The motley costume scheme spanned periods ranging from marriage broker Goro (Kevin Nickorick) wearing a loud sport jacket and bow tie, Butterfly's parasol-spinning girlfriends in traditional Japanese garb and Kate Pinkerton (Susanne Epple) dressed as a proper Victorian.

Lacking, in the first two acts, was the sense of impending doom that animates Butterfly. Most of the singers were stiff in their interaction with each other. The Yankee vagabond duet by Pinkerton and Sharpless soared only intermittently. Butterfly and Pinkerton's love duet was strangely static.

Ultimately, Puccini's score is irresistible, and Sforzini and the orchestra did a good job with it. Coulmas was at her best in the finale. When Butterfly prayed over her father's dagger, and then performed her self-destructive ceremony in a wash of red lighting, it was as wrenching as always.

Interestingly, the performance didn't have the now-standard English translation on supertitles. Operagoers who know Butterfly may have welcomed not having any distraction from the sung Italian, but for first-timers, it was probably incomprehensible.

[Last modified June 13, 2005, 01:42:15]