American raft, slouching flag - scenographing Butterfly

07.09.2018

Day 22. TGIF: It is getting late. Admittedly, I usually have a lot of problems with Madama Butterfly, and tend to avoid performances of it. Now, this has changed: Still in my memory, the intense, critical, affective (I cried all of second section) scenographic experince from Madama Butterfly at the Gothenburg Opera (https://en.opera.se/forestallningar/madame-butterfly-2018-2019/).

Towards the end of the tragdy, the home of Butterfly, her son, the people arlund her, and her ghostly American "husband" (not been there for three f...g years), a raft in a devastated industrial landscape, the bridge between cultures, west and east, death and life or vice versa, tradition and innovation, is still there as a material and symbolic passage. No background - only infinite mystery and glden-silver shimmer, as well as brutal built structure. On the floor, towards the bitter end: the home as raft, a dirty slouching American flag, on a raft, cut of, lost. I wish fo a part 2, looking into the child's perspective and destiny, the critical heritage, the scenographic drama of -----mobilizing resources that can make us think and feel, act and react-------

It is getting later, nastier for the scenographic. The Gothenburg Opera webpage from the 2018/19 performance does not even mention the name of the scenographer for the amazing Madama Butterfly production. What the f...?! Ignorance, lack of ...what? Somehow: revolting. Here is the name: Tom Schenk and some facts from the 2016 production : https://en.opera.se/om-oss/personal/portratt/tom-schenk/

Picture? Read my words and imagine the scene! The pictures selceted by the Opera house is not really scenographic, I say.  Why are there no scenographic reviewers, critics? Schenk's excellent pictures here: https://tomschenk.nl/madama-butterfly/. 

Credit: https://tomschenk.nl/madama-butterfly/
Credit: https://tomschenk.nl/madama-butterfly/