I thought I’d make a quick post in honor of the United States Independence Day.
Let’s turn our attention to an opera written by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini that was based in a land far-far away. Yes, I’m talking about Madame Butterfly.
If you don’t know the plot of this tragic opera, it is about a 15 year old girl named Cio-Cio San (or Madama Butterfly) who marries a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy named Pinkerton. Although she marries him for love and even converts to christianity for him, he marries her for the convenience of a wife in Japan before he goes back to America and finds a “proper” wife, utilizing the lax divorce laws in Japan to get out of the marriage. When he leaves, Madame Butterfly gives birth to a baby boy and waits 3 years for his return like a diligent wife, but when he shows up to take the baby so he and his new wife can raise the child, she is devastated and commits suicide, which surprises absolutely no one seeing as this is an opera.
Now despite the problems I have with the plot of this opera (the fact that Madame Butterfly revolves her life around a man and eventually kills herself over said man irritates me to no end), I overlook the plot for the beauty of the music. Madame Butterfly might be a perfect example of how racism and stereotyping effects even music, but Puccini makes it work in this opera. I imagine it is similar to how people always raise a fuss about how Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness is racist, but you read it for the beauty of his writing.
Whenever Madame Butterfly sings, we hear a traditional and simple Japanese sounding phrase to emphasize her nationality. This is used as a perfect example of exoticism, but what we must remember is that exoticism does not embody the music of whoever it was taken from, it merely shows the tip of the iceberg. We hear this charming and simple phrase that people can recognize as sounding Japanese, but it should not be used as a guide to their music by any means! Music from Japan can be incredibly complex, but Puccini, of course, has not the incline or time to hear or analyze the traditional music. He must use only small simple structures to build his own musical piece over. But this creates a stereotype in music and passes it on to the character of Madame Butterfly showing that she is the perfect archetype of a Japanese women: innocent, dutiful, meek, and bound by honor.
And now to the American stuff.
Interestingly enough, Puccini employs a similar tactic when writing music for Pinkerton. In the background, we can hear the Star Spangled Banner being played quietly, but still very evidently. If Madame Butterfly is the stereotypical Japanese women, then Pinkerton is the stereotypical full-blooded ‘Merican that his theme of the national anthem would suggest. He’s charming (to a point where it’s almost cruel when you know his plans to leave her), handsome, and almost kingly in his charismatic influence over the people, however he is also very ignorant in many things, especially in how selfish he is. He does not realize the consequences of his actions and never thinks on how what he does will affect those around him.
Is this the America we portray to others? Perhaps this 4th of July we should take a minute to put down our sparklers and think about this “stereotypical, full-blooded American”. Because if Pinkerton is our perfect archetype as Puccini might think, then we might want to start re-evaluating some things.
the music corner 