An intense tale of culture clashes, lost love and ritual suicide hardly sounds like a great night out but Northern Ballet’s exuberant revival of Madame Butterfly is a profound show packed with great beauty.
The toned bodies of the company trample all over the notion that great art can only happen in London, as they take Puccini’s classic opera and make complete sense of it in dance.
Butterfly’s father commits ritual suicide and sells his daughter off to marriage broker Goro and she becomes a Geisha. Along comes brash American sailor Pinkerton who falls for the beautiful concubine, but she thinks their ‘marriage’ is real before her beau returns overseas.
The sequence where Pinkerton and his two buddies fail to make sense of this inherently alien culture is a subtle mix of steps based on traditional Japanese dance, and the old style hoofing of 40s classics like the sublime On The Town.
But act one is dominated by a stunning pas de deux from Michela Paolacci and John Hull as the cocky Pinterton attempts to seduce the naïve Butterfly. It’s full of demanding lifts carried off with great precision, and some splendid acting from both leads throughout this doomed dance of love and lust.
Act two opens with the lovelorn Butterfly waiting for her lost sailor with a young son that is the product of their coupling. Suddenly, a cannon goes off announcing Pinkerton is back in town prompting Butterfly and her faithful servant Suzuki to launch into a joyous and touching celebratory dance.
But it all goes wrong as Pinkerton has brought his American wife along and the heartbroken Butterfly hands their son over, before returning to her own culture in the most extreme way.
Everything about this production works. All the dancers are bang on form dancing to an intelligent score that wonderfully combines the original score and traditional Japanese instruments. The sets are suitably simple yet impressive, and the costume team have really gone to town on the look.
The only jarring note was that this wasn’t a full house which is bizarre considering the quality of this production, so the only thing to do is book now before Butterfly wings off on tour. You’d be daft not to.
This really is a sublime dance production. The costume and sets are a real delight, and draw beautifully on the elegant simplicity of the Japanese aesthetic. The ritual suicide scene was powerful in both choreography, and by the vocal accompaniment, which I found totally breathtaking and tragic.