Puccini Madama Butterfly. Mirella Freni (sop) Madama Butterfly; Jose Carreras (ten) Pinkerton; Juan Pons (bar) Sharpless; Teresa Berganza (mez) Suzuki; Anthony Laciura (ten) Goro; Mark Curtis (ten) Prince Yamadori; Marianna Rorholm (contr) Kate Pinkerton; Kurt Rydl (bass) The Bonze; Ambrosian Opera Chorus; Philharmonia Orchestra / Giuseppe Sinopoli.

DG (Full price) 423 567-1GH3 (three records, nas); (Cassette) 423 567-4GH2; (CD) 423 567-2GH3 (three discs, nas: 154 minutes: DDD). Notes, text and translation included.

Sinopoli's Madama Butterfly is very moving, often extremely beautiful (not even Karajan makes Puccini's orchestra sound so ravishing) and, in a single, crucial sense, deeply disconcerting. In a word, it is quite sensationally slow, the slowest Butterfly in my experience, and by a substantial margin. Nine minutes slower than Karajan's second (1974) version (for Decca, 6/87) may not sound a lot, but Karajan had already added nearly eight minutes to his by no means headlong 1954 recording (with Callas on EMI, 10/87). The comparison that makes you sit up is with Leinsdorf on RCA. Leinsdorf sounds hurried, true, but his overall timing (if not his detailed interpretation of tempo) has at least some claim to 'authenticity'. Basing his conclusions on precise observation of metronome marks and on memories of the composer at rehearsal, Luigi Ricci (Puccini interprete di se stesso; Milan: 1954) estimated the duration of the opera at 125 minutes. Leinsdorf takes 121 Sinopoli an extraordinary and unprecedented 154.

His speeds are by no means all slow: the introduction, the opening scene, "Un bel di," much of the flower duet, the humming chorus—all these passages and others are at a relatively 'normal' tempo. The half-hour that Sinopoli adds to Leinsdorf's timing is achieved partly by an extreme (and masterfully controlled) use of rubato, partly by taking some sections of the score really very slowly indeed. His first unorthodox choice of tempo is, I am quite sure, a mistake: Pinkerton's lazily carefree "Dovunque al mondo" is marked allegro, con spirito (to be sure, sostenuto as well) and crotchet = 112, and Sinopoli comes nowhere near it; the result is heavy, lethargic and devoid of charm. This is unfortunate, but also uncharacteristic, you get a better idea of what this performance is really about from the entrance music for Butterfly and her friends (undeniably slow but exquisitely phrased and with the choral/orchestral texture immaculately balanced: fragile music) and from the love duet, where Sinopoli gets closer than any other conductor to realizing Puccini's apparently impossible demand that the passage ("Dicon ch'oltre mare") in which Butterfly fearfully asks whether it is true that in Pinkerton's country they pierce butterflies with pins, should be at very nearly twice the speed of the music ("Vogliatemi bene") that precedes it. The interplay in this duet between impulsive ardour and reticence, between (in Butterfly's own half-comprehending mind) chastity and passion, apprehension and self-abandonment is graphically portrayed.

Sinopoli's objective becomes more and more evident as the opera proceeds: to redefine as tragedy what is still often seen as a pathetic but sentimental anecdote. The letter-reading in Act 2 scene 1 (the tempo more or less forcing Sharpless to react with pity instead of impatience to Butterfly's eager interruptions) is very quiet as well as slow, filled with gradually mounting sadness, her introduction of the child as proof that Pinkerton must return draws a gesture of huge but doomed tragic pride from the orchestra; there is a poignant shadow over much of the flower duet and the scene ends in oppressive darkness. The humming chorus is a beautiful but ineffably sad commentary on Butterfly's faith in Pinkerton (its theme was first heard when his treachery was first hinted at), the introduction to the final scene an outburst of passionate protest and despair.

What Ricci called Puccini's "slow tempo phobia" was based in fear that the audience would be bored. There is no risk of that in a performance in which every expression mark, every harmonic ambiguity and every subtlety of instrumental colour is used to maximum expressive effect. Puccini's preference for this over all his other operas and for Butterfly over all his other heroines seems quite understandable, and there are moments in Sinopoli's reading when I prefer his to all other recordings. There remains a risk that some listeners will be irritated by it, not feeling the need for tragedy to be underscored in this way, finding perhaps that Pinkerton's odiousness is understated by it (his amusement at her trinkets and idols is very gentle, not callous at all—but where in the score does it say that he should be?). And you may very well think that Sinopoli is overstating the opera's stature anyway.

The cast (I have delayed discussing it for far too long, but you see why) is a fine one, with Berganza one of the best Suzukis on record and Pons a concerned and sympathetic Sharpless. Freni is in fuller voice than for Karajan the timbre a shade less pure, but she is still a deeply affecting and expressive Butterfly, seizing all the chances Sinopoli gives her to intensify the pathos of her role, never taxed by his slow pace. Carreras is in better voice than in many recent recordings and gives a decent interpretation of what now seems a basically decent character whose flaw is unimaginative insensitivity; he is let down, as usual, when he forces the top of the voice—an awful yelp in "Addio, fiorito asil".

The recording of the new DG version is superb, with a very natural balance and a beautiful clarity to the orchestral textures. On that account alone I prefer it to Maazel (CBS), where the voices are given a rather sharp edge by their forward placing; his Butterfly, Scotto, is very delicate and expressive but at times rather contrivedly child-like, Domingo is an over-vociferous Pinkerton (his voice most affected by the perspective) and both the Sharpless and the Suzuki make downright unpleasant sounds. Karajan's earlier version has the overwhelming advantage for most listeners of Callas, and those who admire her detailed and intelligent assumption of the role (had I better come right out and say that I don't? she makes too much of the little-girl manner and thus, for my taste, miniaturizes the character) will not mind the almost harsh shrillness her voice takes on at times nor the fact that her Pinkerton (Nicolai Gedda) is likeable but light-voiced and thoroughly un-Italianate. The safest general recommendation is the later Karajan, with Freni in exquisite voice as Butterfly, Pavarotti a Pinkerton who makes you realize what Butterfly sees in him the moment he opens his mouth, a finely atmospheric recording and Karajan himself drawing wondrous sounds from the Vienna Philharmonic (only his Sharpless is dull, but you can't have everything). Sinopoli's creative infidelity to the letter of the text in favour of what he sees as its essentially tragic spirit will be far too idiosyncratic for some tastes (and some pockets: like Karajan's Decca recording, it spreads over three CDs), but every Puccinian should hear it—every anti Puccinian, come to that—and many, I suspect, will be won over by its gripping eloquence.

Copyright © 1988 Gramophone Magazine.