MADAMA BUTTERFLY – PUCCINI
Presented on Apr 8, 10, 12, 21, 25 at the Gaiety Theatre Dublin and on Apr 29, May 2 at the Opera House Cork as part of the Dublin Grand Opera Society’s Spring Season
Yoko Watanabe – Cio-Cio San
Renato Grimaldi – Pinkerton
Ruth Maher – Suzuki
Peter McBrien / Attilio d’Orazi[Apr 8, 10, 21] – Sharpless
Brendan Cavanagh / Frank Dunne[Apr 29] – Goro
Seán Mitten – Bonze / Yamadori
Joan Rooney – Kate
Colman Pearce – Conductor
Paddy Ryan – Producer
THE OPERA WAS ALSO GIVEN IN CORK
Paddy Ryan, meanwhile, was directing a revival of “Madama Butterfly” and told me he saw Puccini’s opera as an intensely personal drama. ‘I regarded it also as intensely emotional music and we had I believe a very fine cast. As Butterfly, the Japanese soprano Yoko Watanabe was stunning to look at and blessed with a lovely voice. I remember that she worked so hard in rehearsal that she cried if anything went wrong. I counted her right for the part in every way. Ironically, she was in love with the Italian tenor Renato Grimaldi who in this production was the Pinkerton who would leave her for someone else. Looking back, he says that this was the best production he staged for the society, for both musically and dramatically everything in his opinion worked. He recalled that in the final moments Colman Pearce and the orchestra held the last chord of the music until Butterfly dies in Pinkerton’s arms. ‘I feel that her performance was unforgettable and I find that people still come up to me and recall her portrayal. For one thing, she brought out all the heart-breaking longing and final despair as I had not before experienced it. Incidentally, I didn’t suspect that Yoko and Renato were off-stage lovers – I thought she was in love with me!’ Inevitably their romance was taken up by the media, first though by journalist Sheila Walsh whose engagement column in the Irish Press was widley read. She told me she had got ‘a hint of it’ from a DGOS chorus member and it turned out to be one of her best stories of the year and in the paper was accompanied by a striking photograph of the young lovers. To Donegal-born Sheila, everyone loved to read about romance and she worked hard to meet the demand. It seemed that Yoko Watanabe and Renato Grimaldi had met four years before in a singing competition in Tokyo where they shared the top prize. Since he spoke no Japanese and she no Italian, they went their separate ways, only to meet a few years later at La Scala Opera Studio where their love began to blossom. To Sheila Walsh it was the classic showbusiness romance. By now Ruth Maher had made the part of Suzuki (“Madama Butterfly”) her own and in the outstanding production of that season had gained more kudos for her performance. ‘I was in total sympathy with the part and in Yoko Watanabe I realised we had an exceptionally talented Cio-Cio-San.’ Fanny Feehan (Evening Herald) commented, ‘Ruth Maher has played many Suzukis to different and indifferent Butterfly’s, but here she excelled; in fact, all the small parts were well cast, Sean Mitten as The Bonze and Prince Yamadori and Brendan Cavanagh as Goro.’
(Extracted from “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” by Gus Smith, 1998)
More information for this production (including any surviving production photographs, press reviews and links to other content) will be added in due course as time allows – check the home page for an updated progress report on uploading.
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