# ‘Madame Butterfly’



## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

http://www.seattletimes.com/enterta...wirls-around-seattle-operas-madame-butterfly/
viewing this from a group on face book


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ldiat said:


> http://www.seattletimes.com/enterta...wirls-around-seattle-operas-madame-butterfly/
> viewing this from a group on face book


Seattle makes the headlines, let's see what S.O.F makes of this.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Another example of political correctness gone mad with people not having the intelligence to realise that on the stage it is actors were playing apart and not real life. So if someone is playing a Japanese geisha it is perhaps about appropriate to make them up to look somewhat Japanese. The whole point of Madame Butterfly is that it is a period piece seen through the eyes of an Italian composer. It is not real life and not intended to be real life. In fact the only people it really insults are Americans in that it is an American who acts as an absolute swine towards a girl who he inpregnates then abandons. Oh and by the way just to emphasise that it is not real life it is usually sung in Italian not English or Japanese


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Italian, yes... To start with they could use its proper title: "Madama Butterfly".


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It annoys me when someone who has more than just a smattering of opera refers to the opera and to Cio Cio San as "Madame" Butterfly. There is no such person. It is "Madama!"


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## rspader (May 14, 2014)

I had the good fortune to see Madama Butterfly yesterday at Seattle Opera. Withholding any personal commentary concerning cultural appropriation, political correctness or the general necessity of Seattleites to be pissed off about something, the performance was wonderful. If I was not heading out of town for the remainder of its run, I would see it again.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

rspader said:


> I had the good fortune to see Madama Butterfly yesterday at Seattle Opera. Withholding any personal commentary concerning cultural appropriation, political correctness or the general necessity of Seattleites to be pissed off about something, the performance was wonderful. If I was not heading out of town for the remainder of its run, I would see it again.


As a former resident of Seattle, I love your collective self-portrait. I might add to it, but feel, as a now-Oregonian, that I've forfeited the right.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Another example of political correctness gone mad with people not having the intelligence to realise that on the stage it is actors were playing apart and not real life. So if someone is playing a Japanese geisha it is perhaps about appropriate to make them up to look somewhat Japanese. QUOTE]
> 
> In Asia Pinkerton and Kate are sung by singers in blonde wigs or hair dyed blonde and make up to look like Westerners.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In Asia Pinkerton and Kate are sung by singers in blonde wigs or hair dyed blonde and make up to look like Westerners.

As they should be.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

So ridiculous!

How can one tell the story of the way things were, WITHOUT depicting the racial stereotypes from that period of time?


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## Scott Bremer (Aug 10, 2017)

Michael Chioldi as Sharpless


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Another example of political correctness gone mad with people not having the intelligence to realise that on the stage it is actors were playing apart and not real life. So if someone is playing a Japanese geisha it is perhaps about appropriate to make them up to look somewhat Japanese. The whole point of Madame Butterfly is that it is a period piece seen through the eyes of an Italian composer. It is not real life and not intended to be real life. In fact the only people it really insults are Americans in that it is an American who acts as an absolute swine towards a girl who he inpregnates then abandons. Oh and by the way just to emphasise that it is not real life it is usually sung in Italian not English or Japanese


For me, the problem is that white people made up to look Japanese don't look like Japanese people; they look like Mickey Rooney with buck teeth in Breakfast at Tiffany or Peter Sellers with a Fu Manchu beard. Same with white singers made up in blackface for Otello--it in no way makes me think, "oh, a moor''; it makes me think of every fraternity pimps and hos party where they smear shoe polish on their face and carry around 40s.

The problem isn't that it's politically incorrect; the problem is that it's distracting and unnecessary, and weakens the dramatic impact of the artform for the many of us who draw these obvious cultural threads and sit there thinking about the history of yellowface or blackface instead of the stage drama.


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## Scott Bremer (Aug 10, 2017)

How is it politically incorrect for a performer to portray a role in which their race, sex, height, weight, etc. is not befitting of the character? If this were the case, black singers could only perform in shows like Porgy and Bess, overweight singers would only sing comedic roles, and pants roles would be sung by men.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Scott Bremer said:


> How is it politically incorrect for a performer to portray a role in which their race, sex, height, weight, etc. is not befitting of the character? If this were the case, black singers could only perform in shows like Porgy and Bess, overweight singers would only sing comedic roles, and pants roles would be sung by men.


??????

No one described in that story about the Seattle performance suggested only casting Japanese singers for the role. They just suggested not putting yellowface on a white performer, and they added a note to the program guide noting that the idea that a 15 year old girl could be a geisha (which requires years of training) is culturally inaccurate.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> For me, *the problem is that white people made up to look Japanese don't look like Japanese people*; they look like Mickey Rooney with buck teeth in Breakfast at Tiffany or Peter Sellers with a Fu Manchu beard. Same with white singers made up in blackface for Otello--it in no way makes me think, "oh, a moor''; it makes me think of every fraternity pimps and hos party where they smear shoe polish on their face and carry around 40s.
> 
> The problem isn't that it's politically incorrect; the problem is that *it's distracting and unnecessary, and weakens the dramatic impact of the artform for the many of us* *who* draw these obvious cultural threads and *sit there thinking about the history of yellowface or blackface* instead of the stage drama.


Are we so jaded now, so sophisticated, so spoiled by computer technology, such consarned _literalists?_ Whatever happened to the suspension of disbelief? Why does theatrical convention, old-fashioned make-believe, no longer satisfy? If I see a white singer as Aida with dark makeup, I don't need a fraction of a second to say, subconsciously, "Of course, Aida is Nubian, and this singer is in costume and makeup." I'm not the least bit distracted, and couldn't care less about the history of blackface. And if the makeup is tasteful and expert, and she looks nice, I don't care that they haven't been able to broaden her nose to be "authentically" *******. The concept is clear and sufficient, and I'm just enjoying the opera.

I really don't understand how people get bent out of shape over this. Real life is real life, and theater is theater. Why should we mess with art (the root of "artificial") to accommodate people uncertain or uneasy about the distinction, or so overburdened with "political consciousness" that they can't enjoy an evening of fantasy?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Are we so jaded now, so sophisticated, so spoiled by computer technology, such consarned _literalists?_ Whatever happened to the suspension of disbelief? Why does theatrical convention, old-fashioned make-believe, no longer satisfy? If I see a white singer as Aida with dark makeup, I don't need a fraction of a second to say, subconsciously, "Of course, Aida is Nubian, and this singer is in costume and makeup." I'm not the least bit distracted, and couldn't care less about the history of blackface. And if the makeup is tasteful and expert, and she looks nice, I don't care that they haven't been able to broaden her nose to be "authentically" *******. The concept is clear and sufficient, and I'm just enjoying the opera.
> 
> I really don't understand how people get bent out of shape over this. Real life is real life, and theater is theater. Why should we mess with art (the root of "artificial") to accommodate people uncertain or uneasy about the distinction, or so overburdened with "political consciousness" that they can't enjoy an evening of fantasy?


We don't live in an ahistorical void, duck. It's impossible not to think about fu manchu beards and grotesqueries like this when I see yellowface.









And to turn it around, I really don't understand how people get bent out of shape watching a non-yellowfaced Cio Cio san or non-blackfaced Otello.









"Oh my god, which one is is Cio Cio san? I really can't tell without inaccurate and completely inappropriate caked on yellowface"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> We don't live in an ahistorical void, duck. It's impossible not to think about fu manchu beards and grotesqueries like this when I see yellowface.
> 
> View attachment 96626
> 
> ...


You're caricaturing this terribly. I don't believe in dogmatic purism. I think a realistic production should be a _reasonable_ representation of what it purports to be. Some Caucasian Cio-Cio Sans may look reasonably convincing in Japanese dress and require little or no makeup. Others may not. My problem is with the (to me) bizarre notion that a little eyeliner or face powder is somehow offensive or evocative of "Fu Manchu" or whatever. I mean, where does that end? Should we make Butterfly wear a pantsuit too, because a kimono and hairpins make some hypersensitive person think of chintzy Hollywood costume dramas? Why should some people's "historical" burdens deprive everyone else in the audience of ordinary theatrical fantasy? I can separate my historical awareness of "yellowface" from the sight of a little makeup, tastefully applied. That's hardly a grotesque caricature like Mickey Rooney grinning in a bathtub. Why do you resort to such extreme comparisons?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> You're caricaturing this terribly. I don't believe in dogmatic purism. I think a realistic production should be a _reasonable_ representation of what it purports to be. Some Caucasian Cio-Cio Sans may look reasonably convincing in Japanese dress and require little or no makeup. Others may not. My problem is with the (to me) bizarre notion that a little eyeliner or face powder is somehow offensive or evocative of "Fu Manchu" or whatever. I mean, where does that end? Should we make Butterfly wear a pantsuit too, because a kimono and hairpins make some hypersensitive person think of chintzy Hollywood costume dramas? Why should some people's "historical" burdens deprive everyone else in the audience of ordinary theatrical fantasy? I can separate my historical awareness of "yellowface" from the sight of a little makeup, tastefully applied. That's hardly a grotesque caricature like Mickey Rooney grinning in a bathtub. Why do you resort to such extreme comparisons?


I'm describing my own personal reactions, so I don't believe I'm caricaturing this terribly. As I said before, I don't consider it offensive, but yes, even seeing Kristine Opolais in the geisha wig but no yellow makeup at her Met performance a year or two ago made me think about these practices.

How does having people with "a little makeup, tastefully applied" so greatly increase your enjoyment of the performance? Do you feel like you're unable to appreciate the theatrical fantasy without those elements?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> I'm describing my own personal reactions, so I don't believe I'm caricaturing this terribly. As I said before, I don't consider it offensive, but yes, even seeing Kristine Opolais in the geisha wig but no yellow makeup at her Met performance a year or two ago made me think about these practices.
> 
> How does having people with "a little makeup, tastefully applied" so greatly increase your enjoyment of the performance? Do you feel like you're unable to appreciate the theatrical fantasy without those elements?


I can enjoy an opera with no makeup or costumes. I can enjoy non-realistic productions without winged helmets and spears. I can enjoy an opera in concert with no staging whatsoever. I can enjoy an opera listening to a recording with nothing to look at but my living room wall. That isn't the issue. The issue is opera houses stripping away normal elements of theatrical representation because for some people they evoke cultural associations they find unpleasant or offensive. I respect the problem of "historical association" some Jewish people have in listening to Wagner, but the problem resides within them and they shouldn't be insisting that their country ban one of the world's greatest composers from their concert halls and opera houses.

I'm not arguing with anyone's right to their associations, but with attempts to alter perfectly rational and normal theatrical production values so as to impose by conspicuous omission such associations on the opera-going public, with the clear implication that the resulting demonstration of "cultural sensitivity" has some moral significance we should all agree to, or at least acquiesce to. For those of us who can leave our awareness of Aunt Jemima and Charlie Chan at home, Otello and Cio-Cio San should look, in theatrical terms, like Shakespeare's noble Moor and Puccini's innocent geisha, not like Swedes.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I can enjoy an opera with no makeup or costumes. I can enjoy non-realistic productions without winged helmets and spears. I can enjoy an opera in concert with no staging whatsoever. I can enjoy an opera listening to a recording with nothing to look at but my living room wall. That isn't the issue. The issue is opera houses stripping away normal elements of theatrical representation because for some people they evoke cultural associations they find unpleasant or offensive. *[B)I respect the problem of "historical association" some Jewish people have in listening to Wagner, but the problem resides within them and they shouldn't be insisting that their country ban one of the world's greatest composers from their concert halls and opera houses. *
> [/B]


I would actually feel that the problem lies with Wagner and the tomes of anti-semitic ranting he produced during his life. When you get a blatant racist causing offence by what he says then I don't think the problem lies with the people he has abused. This was the problem with Wagner - it was always everyone else's fault not his own!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> I would actually feel that the problem lies with Wagner and the tomes of anti-semitic ranting he produced during his life. When you get a blatant racist causing offence by what he says then I don't think the problem lies with the people he has abused. This was the problem with Wagner - it was always everyone else's fault not his own!


Please. The problem under discussion here is not the virtues and vices of composers, but what we do with works of art - whether and how we choose to present them. Do we deny the existence or alter the identity of our cultural heritage because it doesn't express our present-day sensibilities or because it makes us uncomfortable in some way? Do we have a right to make these artistic decisions for others? I'm sure it makes you feel good to dump on Wagner - he's a popular target of righteous pronouncements - but the question is whether his music ought to be heard and whether some people's sensitivities ought to decide that question for others. Is the fact that someone thinks of Japanese internment camps when a singer portraying Butterfly wears makeup to change the shape of her eyes a legitimate reason to flout an audience's normal expectation that the performer will resemble the character being presented?

(Fyi, the problem some Jews have with Wagner has more to do with Hitler's appropriation of him than with the mere fact of his antisemitism. The people advocating that his music be banned in Israel were not "abused" by him - and, as a matter of fact, the many Jews with whom he actually associated during his life, including the first conductor of _Parsifal_, were not abused either. Chopin, Mussorgsky and other composers were antisemitic too - it was a common prejudice - but because Hitler didn't adopt them, they get a pass. In any case this is all irrelevant to the meaning and value of their art.)


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I can enjoy an opera with no makeup or costumes. I can enjoy non-realistic productions without winged helmets and spears. I can enjoy an opera in concert with no staging whatsoever. I can enjoy an opera listening to a recording with nothing to look at but my living room wall. That isn't the issue. The issue is opera houses stripping away normal elements of theatrical representation because for some people they evoke cultural associations they find unpleasant or offensive. [...]
> 
> I'm not arguing with anyone's right to their associations, but with attempts to alter perfectly rational and normal theatrical production values so as to impose by conspicuous omission such associations on the opera-going public, with the clear implication that the resulting demonstration of "cultural sensitivity" has some moral significance we should all agree to, or at least acquiesce to. For those of us who can leave our awareness of Aunt Jemima and Charlie Chan at home, Otello and Cio-Cio San should look, in theatrical terms, like Shakespeare's noble Moor and Puccini's innocent geisha, not like Swedes.


Why do you think opera and theater companies not using yellowface or blackface is insincere, or just for show? Is it that hard to believe that there are people in opera companies that are themselves bothered by such practices*?

I think the use of yellowface and blackface is becoming less and less normal. I don't really see what is lost, and you haven't really explained (not that anyone is required to; I don't understand and/or can't elucidate all of my artistic preferences), other than a bizarre reference to dark make-up and Aida.

I have not seen a production of _Aida_ where they use blackface, but that make-up wouldn't distinguish Aida from the other Ethiopians, right? Is it common practice to only black-up Aida? What about the Egyptians, are they commonly darkened some, too, or are they treated as white?

The best I can come up with for _Madama Butterfly_ is that unconvincing stage make-up could be a consistent staging choice, to fit with unconvincing sets (that are also suggestions of a reality) and the unconvincing portrait of Japan found in the story.

*I am not involved in the production of opera, but will note that I didn't get any sort of award for not seeing _Madama Butterfly_ last fall; I merely did not get to see Lianna Haroutounian or any of the other singers I wanted to see. I also didn't tweet angrily at San Francisco Opera or anyone else for that matter. And even though I saw everything else in the fall season, I am sure my absence was not conspicuous. [I might have mentioned not seeing Butterfly here, though probably more in the context of not liking Puccini].


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Why do you think opera and theater companies not using yellowface or blackface is insincere, or just for show? Is it that hard to believe that there are people in opera companies that are themselves bothered by such practices*?
> 
> I think the use of yellowface and blackface is becoming less and less normal. I don't really see what is lost, and you haven't really explained (not that anyone is required to; I don't understand and/or can't elucidate all of my artistic preferences), other than a bizarre reference to dark make-up and Aida.
> 
> ...


I haven't questioned anyone's sincerity. I've only criticized the presumption that individuals bothered by "such practices" - i.e. making up actors to look plausibly like the ethnic types they're portraying - should deprive others of what has always been a normal experience in the theater.

I also find the terms "blackface" and "yellowface" inherently prejudicial. Do we have "whiteface" and "redface" too? These words come with ready-made value judgments, and there's no need to invoke them. It's just theatrical makeup. When I sang in the chorus of _Les Troyens_ in Boston in the '70s, we were made up to look like Carthaginians, with some sort of tanning stuff and black hairspray. We all thought it was fun and no one was offended by any possible "racist" implications.

Apparently we are to think of ourselves as more enlightened than our forebears because we obsess over this issue (and others, such as antisemitism in the context of Wagner's operas), and the mere possibility that anyone in the audience should be so naive as to enjoy a century-old opera without seeing its "relevance" to our current social and political preoccupations and fashionable memes is intolerable to us. But _Madama Butterfly_ isn't supposed to be an accurate academic study of Japanese culture. It's a European period piece set in an imaginary Japan which more or less resembles the actual country. Arguably it caricatures both Japanese and American culture, and political correctness could argue that the entire opera is "racist" and should either be banned or rendered unrecognizable by some extreme regietheater makeover (which I'm sure has been tried).

I find all of these questions tiresome. Just perform the damned opera and let it make its own points. If anyone is uncomfortable with it, so much the better. It is what it is, and the political discussion can take place at dinner afterward, not on the stage.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Blackface and yellowface are, yes, loaded terms. They refer to racist practices. You can deny their origins, but that doesn't change what they are. Opera and theatrical creators and producers wanted the best in realism, without, you know, actually allowing people of color on stage. They are part of institutional, systemic racism, that is still around today. We have people in the White House arguing that we should be nicer to white supremacists; we are far from the point (and realistically will never get there) where we can say racism isn't an issue anymore and everyone should just move on.

And yes, there is redface. It's less common in opera and theater because it is less common to include Native American peoples in such art works. For opera, nothing comes to mind beyond two of the acts of _Les Indes galantes_ and a few minor characters in _La fanciulla del West_.

Upon looking further, there are a number of operas on Montezuma, but mostly by composers I barely recognize, but one is by Vivaldi but it was lost for 250 years and then there's _Die Eroberung von Mexico_ by Wolfgang Rihm. There are other rarely performed operas such as _Tata Vasco_ by Miguel Bernal Jiménez, _Il Guarany_ and _Lo schiavo_ by Antônio Carlos Gomes, and _Tornrak_ by John Metcalf, set in the Canadian Arctic and featuring Inuit throat singing. Spontini's _Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique_ premiered in 1809. Of these, I've heard the Rihm (and a production was given last year by Oper Köln), but nothing else.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> Blackface and yellowface are, yes, loaded terms. They refer to racist practices. You can deny their origins, but that doesn't change what they are. Opera and theatrical creators and producers wanted the best in realism, without, you know, actually allowing people of color on stage. They are part of institutional, systemic racism, that is still around today. We have people in the White House arguing that we should be nicer to white supremacists; we are far from the point (and realistically will never get there) where we can say racism isn't an issue anymore and everyone should just move on.


This skirts the question I'm raising, which is simply: why should the mere act of using makeup on Caucasians who are playing Asians or characters of other races, something which has always been done for obvious reasons of dramatic verisimilitude, be considered racist, or associated with racism? Is using makeup for this purpose really a racist act? Is it morally _wrong?_ If not, does it make sense to use a value-laden term such as "blackface" to describe it? "Blackface" is a term originated to describe entertainments in which black characters, generally caricatures, were presented but weren't usually portrayed by actual blacks, who were not permitted to appear onstage in white-dominated venues. But that's a purpose and a context which doesn't apply to the Met - which hasn't banned minorities, formally or informally, for over half a century - or, so far as I'm aware, to other major stages in today's world.

Nowadays we don't put makeup on people because we forbid colored people to sing, or because we want to make fun of them; we do it, for example, because we've got a cast of pasty white Brits and the story is about Ethiopians or Indians or Mongolians or Aborigines. Ideally, we might want to find actors of those origins to enact their own characters, or just not produce a work if we can't cast it "authentically," but obviously that isn't always possible. In theater, one plays a part, and looking the part has always been a normal aspect of playing it. But it seems that some people are willing to see a pasty, freckled Anglo-Saxon Otello described as a "blackamoor" from Africa, or a tall, blue-eyed, blonde Norwegian called Butterfly, at whatever cost to coherence and common sense, just to avoid being reminded of a historical phenomenon they aren't old enough to remember. Strange.

I realize I'm bucking the current fashion on this matter. But then I've always been out of style.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> This skirts the question I'm raising, which is simply: why should the mere act of using makeup on Caucasians who are playing Asians or characters of other races, something which has always been done for obvious reasons of dramatic verisimilitude, be considered racist, or associated with racism? Is using makeup for this purpose really a racist act? Is it morally _wrong?_


This is what I meant by saying we don't live in an ahistorical vacuum. Yes, abstracted from our history and culture, there's nothing intrinsically troubling about wearing makeup to approximate someone from another part of the world. But we've had a century of this:









































Meanings of words and acts aren't abstract entities living in a cultural vacuum. They're formed by reference to the cultural practices that endow acts with meaning. After this history we have, it's impossible to ignore, and it's difficult to assume good faith when people are so intent on continuing these practices. I tell you that honestly and sincerely, it's impossible for me to see blackface or yellowface without being distracted by these associations. You claim that you don't need these practices to enjoy a performance. So why are you so committed to supporting these practices? Isn't it enough for you to know that some certain portion of the audience finds this distracting, and you don't find the lack of it similarly distracting?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> This is what I meant by saying we don't live in an ahistorical vacuum. Yes, abstracted from our history and culture, there's nothing intrinsically troubling about wearing makeup to approximate someone from another part of the world. But we've had a century of this:
> 
> View attachment 96663
> 
> ...


I'm trying not to say "Oh my God! You're kidding!"

Pretty obviously, I'm not the extremist in this argument. Don't misunderstand my view here: I'm not dogmatic about the question of stage makeup. I'm not making any absolute pronouncements. Art is always case-by-case, and the need for makeup will certainly depend on the particular physical appearance of an actor, as well as the style of the production. In a performance that purports to be basically realistic, I think dramatic integrity requires that there be as little incongruity as is reasonably possible between the appearance of the actor and the nature of the role. If the incongruity is too great - if Othello/Otello is a Nordic blonde and his Desdemona is a nut-brown Mexican - I'm going to find the effect ridiculous and an offense against the text and meaning of the play or the opera. That's all I'm saying. We're not talking about crude layers of pancake here, and I find all this talk of "blackface" and "yellowface," with all your photos of outrageous racist caricatures, both absurd and astonishing. The dogmatism is clearly on the side of those who, for reasons of their own, can't bear the thought of any attempt to alter an actor's appearance to suit a character's ethnic identity, even when, in most cases, an actor's inappropriate look can probably be modified quite subtly and not even look like makeup under the stage lights. You seem to be defending some principle you think admits of no compromise, holding that Renata Tebaldi playing Cio-Cio San wearing so much as a bit of eyeliner would be an offense against Asians everywhere, or that the subtle darkening of Placido Domingo's complexion must evoke slavery and minstrel shows in the minds of all right-thinking people. I find this nonsensical.

Your argument that "we" have a specific historical context in which "we" must all make certain associations and connections just doesn't wash. Not only do we all view our positions in history and culture differently, but there is absolutely no logical relationship for "us" to discover between the tasteful pursuit of visual integrity in the serious theatrical arts, on the one hand, and white entertainers bootblacking their faces and whitening their lips to create n****r caricatures, on the other. It's rather amazing to me, and a little sad, that some people are unable to keep such distinct phenomena separate in their minds, and that the mental/emotional confusion of these people should - perhaps because racism is currently such a fashionable knee-jerk issue (which is not at all to minimize the need to deal with it) - wield so much power over the opera world that the rest of us, who know that Otello's blackness is identified as integral to his identity, should be forced to look at a cute blond white boy like Roberto Alagna in place of the man Shakespeare and Verdi imagined.

To recap what I said at he beginning of this discussion: "Real life is real life, and theater is theater. Why should we mess with art (the root of "artificial") to accommodate people uncertain or uneasy about the distinction, or so overburdened with 'political consciousness' that they can't enjoy an evening of fantasy?"


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I don't care that they haven't been able to broaden her nose to be "authentically" *******. The concept is clear and sufficient, and I'm just enjoying the opera.


East Africans really don´t have those broad noses.

Regarding Madama Butterfly it is one of my favourite operas but I prefer Iris. More great arias, Inno del sole is much better than the Humming Chorus and she don´t fall for the jerk tenor. I also think it gives a much more Japanese atmosphere there is a feeling of mysterious calmness in the music of Iris that I associate with Japan.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Pretty obviously, I'm not the extremist in this argument. Don't misunderstand my view here: I'm not dogmatic about the question of stage makeup. I'm not making any absolute pronouncements.


The context here is an opera company choosing not to use this style of stage make-up. Are you not complaining about them for their decisions for their production? What is more extremist than that?



Woodduck said:


> To recap what I said at he beginning of this discussion: "Real life is real life, and theater is theater. Why should we mess with art (the root of "artificial") to accommodate people uncertain or uneasy about the distinction, or so overburdened with 'political consciousness' that they can't enjoy an evening of fantasy?"


Theater represents and comments upon life. People that work in theater and create and perform in these productions, it is (part of) their life.

And for some people, attempts to devalue and push non-whites out of public life is not politics, but their lived experience.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> The context here is an opera company choosing not to use this style of stage make-up. Are you not complaining about them for their decisions for their production? What is more extremist than that?
> 
> Theater represents and comments upon life. People that work in theater and create and perform in these productions, it is (part of) their life.
> 
> And for some people, attempts to devalue and push non-whites out of public life is not politics, but their lived experience.


Criticizing an opera company's decision about makeup is "extremist"? How do you define that word?

My point - and how many ways can I say this? - is that stage makeup in serious theatrical art has _absolutely nothing_ to do with "attempts to devalue and push non-whites out of public life," or with the historical parody which is "blackface," or with any other social or political issue, past or present. If some people feel the need to make such connections, that's their prerogative, but their emotional dispositions shouldn't be converted into policies, imposed on the public at large, which alter a tradition of theatrical production that probably dates back to the very first play ever staged in the mists of prehistoric time. An actor's job, the essence of his art, is to become someone else, and looking like someone else has always been an aspect of that job. The physical transformation of the actor is indeed an art in itself. Just ask Sir Laurence Olivier, who was a master at making himself unrecognizable and took justifiable pride in it.

But there's general principle here that's larger than the question of Cio-Cio San's eyeliner. There is probably nothing in our cultural history that someone can't find a way to take offense to. Most of the operas we treasure were written during times when women were considered subservient to men, even the property of men, and whole books have been written on their stereotyped roles and their victimization in the plots of operas, from tragic to comic. _Cosi fan tutte_ - "all _women_ are like that!" Shall we rewrite the novels, plays and operas of the last millennium, or ban their publication and performance, so as not to arouse thoughts of feminine oppression in hapless audiences? How far are we to take this principle of dividing the world up into mutually incomprehensible "safe spaces" for everyone who feels threatened or offended by anyone or anything, a procedure - now alarmingly in progress - whose ultimate goal can only be to destroy personal and civic dialogue and to dismantle and obliterate our cultural heritage? Who's to be "protected" from what, and where does it stop?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I'm trying not to say "Oh my God! You're kidding!"


I'm pretty much right there with you. It really seems like you're being deliberately obtuse.



Woodduck said:


> Pretty obviously, I'm not the extremist in this argument.


How are you not the extremist in this argument? I'm only stepping in because I'm mystified how you could in good faith get your knickers in such a twist over opera companies choosing to forego this type of theatrical makeup that bothers some but not all customers. You've chosen to die on this hill multiple times, and I'm surprised at the reaction--I know you're an artistic reactionary in some respects but I didn't think you were a cultural or political one along the likes of some on this board.

The decision described here in this article seems eminently sensible to me--if even a small portion of the audience finds something you do objectionable whether it's this, or flashing strobe lights, or cell phone usage, or whatever, and no significant portion misses it's absence, why wouldn't an impresario stop doing that thing?

What I'm trying to get to is to figure out how you could possibly mind it's absence, something you've still not articulated beyond expressing an aggrieved sense of victimhood with roots that I cannot identify.



Woodduck said:


> You seem to be defending some principle you think admits of no compromise, holding that Renata Tebaldi playing Cio-Cio San wearing so much as a bit of eyeliner would be an offense against Asians everywhere, or that the subtle darkening of Placido Domingo's complexion must evoke slavery and minstrel shows in the minds of all right-thinking people.


Is this "all right-thinking people" your issue? I think I've been extremely clear that this is _not_ what I'm saying--I think some people will have those associations, and some won't, and I've not claimed that the group who would are the "right-thinking" ones. I think to be "right-thinking", all that is required is that you are able to accept that other people are capable of having objections you don't have and being willing to accept performance practices in line with those objections without having indignant fits about it, especially when you've already said you don't require those practices to personally enjoy these performances.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

DavidA said:


> Another example of political correctness gone mad with people not having the intelligence to realise that on the stage it is actors were playing apart and not real life. So if someone is playing a Japanese geisha it is perhaps about appropriate to make them up to look somewhat Japanese. The whole point of Madame Butterfly is that it is a period piece seen through the eyes of an Italian composer. It is not real life and not intended to be real life. In fact the only people it really insults are Americans in that it is an *American who acts as an absolute swine towards a girl who he inpregnates then abandons*. Oh and by the way just to emphasise that it is not real life it is usually sung in Italian not English or Japanese


an absolute swine towards his wife who gave up everything for him....more heinous still.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

How are you not the extremist in this argument? I'm only stepping in because I'm mystified how you could in good faith get your knickers in such a twist over opera companies choosing to forego this type of theatrical makeup that bothers some but not all customers. I know you're an artistic reactionary in some respects but I didn't think you were a cultural or political one along the likes of some on this board.

"Reactionary" is a label, and it's irrelevant. I'm specifically rejecting any attempt to inject political or cultural issues into what is an artistic matter. After all, I'm not the one resurrecting the history of racial oppression or posting outrageous images of Mickey Rooney and Fu Manchu! I'm defending the integrity of an art form and its legitimate, rational, time-tested practices, and in that I'm not even terribly conservative: I've expressed admiring acceptance of Wieland Wagner's abstract stagings of Wagner at Bayreuth, winged helmets and fur tunics being mere tradition and not essential to Wagner's meaning. Otello's blackness is, however, essential to Shakespeare's/Verdi's meaning. If there's a more "progressive" method than applying makeup of making Olivier/Domingo look like a Moor, I'm all for it.

The decision described here in this article seems eminently sensible to me--if even a small portion of the audience finds something you do objectionable whether it's this, or flashing strobe lights, or cell phone usage, or whatever, and no significant portion misses it's absence, why wouldn't an impresario stop doing that thing?

There is no aspect of life to which some small portion of people do not take offense or raise some objection. We don't normally change the way the world works for those people. Putting makeup on actors so that they look like what they're portraying is the way theater works. Strobe lights and cell phone usage are not equivalent to it. I don't think the Met's decision is eminently sensible. I think it's a cowardly pc capitulation.

What I'm trying to get to is to figure out how you could possibly mind it's absence, something you've still not articulated beyond expressing an aggrieved sense of victimhood with roots that I cannot identify.

Victimhood? _Every_ audience member whose normal expectations of theater art - everyone who thinks that the title character in a classic drama who's described as a Moor should not look like Bjorn Borg - is victimized when the theater changes basic, time-honored, artistically valid artistic policies and traditions to afford "safe space" to a handful of poor souls who just can't stop thinking about Stepin Fetchit. Shakespeare is victimized, the art of theater is victimized, and Western culture is victimized by such a tyranny of the minority - a tiny minority, I'll wager.

Is this "all right-thinking people" your issue? I think I've been extremely clear that this is _not_ what I'm saying--I think some people will have those associations, and some won't, and I've not claimed that the group who would are the "right-thinking" ones. 

I wasn't addressing that phrase to you in particular, but to an attitude of righteousness which typically accompanies so-called "liberal" social experiments nowadays. This is certainly one of those experiments.

I think to be "right-thinking", all that is required is that you are able to accept that other people are capable of having objections you don't have and being willing to accept performance practices in line with those objections without having indignant fits about it, especially when you've already said you don't require those practices to personally enjoy these performances.

Now wait... Didn't you just say that you were not claiming to be "right-thinking"? Looks like you're pretty clear about what right-thinking people should think!

I'm perfectly happy to accept that other people are capable of having objections I don't have. But how does that acceptance obligate me to approve of the Metropolitan Opera presenting an Otello who looks French or Norwegian, just so as not to offend the feelings of a handful of people who object to making any white man look African - or giving legitimacy to the incursion of yet another fashionable "social grievance issue" in order to prove itself acceptably "progressive"?

I'm defending only one thing in these discussions, and that's the integrity of fine art against the graffitti-worshipping mentality of a culture of false equivalency and sentimental egalitarianism that can evidently no longer produce a Shakespeare or a Wagner, and so apparently needs to refashion their works, or their manner of presentation, in the image of its own puny concerns. And this attempt to outlaw theatrical makeup in the name of "safe spaces" is about as puny as it gets.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Victimhood? _Every_ audience member whose normal expectations of theater art - everyone who thinks that the title character in a classic drama who's described as a Moor should not look like Bjorn Borg - is victimized when the theater changes basic, time-honored, artistically valid artistic policies and traditions to afford "safe space" to a handful of poor souls who just can't stop thinking about Stepin Fetchit. Shakespeare is victimized, the art of theater is victimized, and Western culture is victimized by such a tyranny of the minority - a tiny minority, I'll wager.


Ok, thanks for the chuckle. Next time you howl at the world at how you're being _victimized _because they're destroying your ability to suspend your disbelief that a 50 year old woman is a 15 year old girl solely because they leave out the kitchy geisha makeup, I'll let you rant uninterrupted.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Ok, thanks for the chuckle. Next time you howl at the world at how you're being _victimized _because they're destroying your ability to suspend your disbelief that a 50 year old woman is a 15 year old girl solely because they leave out the kitchy geisha makeup, I'll let you rant uninterrupted.


A "victim" is any person (or, by extension, any thing) that is wronged in any way. You're presuming a level of seriousness, drama, or melodrama not implicit in the term. I might as well have used "harmed" or "offended" or "done an injustice" as "victimized," but you brought up the term, so I simply expanded on it.

I won't have to "rant" if people won't tell me with a straight face that their "feelings" are a sufficient reason for the world's major artistic institutions to abolish artistic practices which have fulfilled an obvious function since our remotest ancestors enacted stories around the fire.

EDIT: It's always nice to be told that one's carefully framed, reasoned and composed discussions are "rants."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> Ok, thanks for the chuckle. Next time you howl at the world at how you're being _victimized _because they're destroying your ability to suspend your disbelief that a 50 year old woman is a 15 year old girl solely because they leave out the kitchy geisha makeup, I'll let you rant uninterrupted.


With the advent of HD in the theatre I don't think we'll have too many 50-year-old women pretending to be 15-year-old girls. It does seem to me that people like you can't tell the difference between serious acting (Otello) and comic caricatures (the Black and White Minstrels) nor apparently between the art of acting and real-life. Unfortunately we appear to be burdened in society with campaigners who make an issue out of non-issues. To maybe applying a little makeup to make a man look somewhat like a Moor (which is the part he is playing) is quite logical on the stage. Remember it is fiction we are talking about not fact.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

Dress Joyce DiDonato up as a Babylonian queen and nobody bats an eye ... put Mirella Freni in a kimono and everyone loses their minds! :lol:


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

DavidA said:


> people like you can't tell the difference between serious acting (Otello) and comic caricatures (the Black and White Minstrels) nor apparently between the art of acting and real-life.


I see we're at the dishonest and simplistic straw man stage of the argument.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Ok, thanks for the chuckle. Next time you howl at the world at how you're being _victimized _because they're destroying your ability to suspend your disbelief that a 50 year old woman is a 15 year old girl solely because they leave out the kitchy geisha makeup, I'll let you rant uninterrupted.


No Geisha make-up but something like in this performance:






And even if regie and kimonos would do the job as good it looks really convincing and what to do few singers that looks like they could be Japanese can sing in Swedish.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> I see we're at the dishonest and simplistic straw man stage of the argument.


Why is it that people who produce dishonest and simplistic straw men accuse others of doing so?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> I see we're at the dishonest and simplistic straw man stage of the argument.


Why is it that people who produce dishonest and simplistic straw men accuse others of doing so?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

This site seems to be producing numerous duplicate posts. It can't be a lot of us making the same mistake.


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## David9 (Aug 13, 2017)

Hmm, I don't care who sings or what they look like if the music and drama comes across the stage lights and grab me by the throat (or heart). How many 'large' singers have we embraced as heroic youth and beautiful damsels? Will it end with singers having to 'weigh in' before they can sing Isolde?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Why is it that people who produce dishonest and simplistic straw men accuse others of doing so?


That's your rebuttal? Can you please point to a place where I produced a dishonest or simplistic straw man argument? I did so in my response to you. You've accused me of not being able to tell the difference between acting and real life. Show me a place where I've ascribed to you a similarly ludicrous belief or inability.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> This site seems to be producing numerous duplicate posts. It can't be a lot of us making the same mistake.


They are encores.


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## David9 (Aug 13, 2017)

@howlingfantods - off subject but your login name has to have been borrowed from David Foster Wallace's _Infinite Jest_, unless he also borrowed the term, for what, emotional 'condition'? Loved that book down to the last footnote! R.I.P., DFW.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

David9 said:


> @howlingfantods - off subject but your login name has to have been borrowed from David Foster Wallace's _Infinite Jest_, unless he also borrowed the term, for what, emotional 'condition'? Loved that book down to the last footnote! R.I.P., DFW.


Yes, a huge fan. He's an author I'd read and think, this is exactly how I'd write about the world if I were a lot smarter. So it was very alarming when he committed suicide. It did make me rethink some of his work, especially A Supposedly Fun Thing--I'm thinking the thing causing him despair wasn't the cruise, but himself.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Personally, I think it would be great if Otello could _always_ be sung by a black (or very dark skinned) tenor and Butterfly could _always_ be sung by an Asian soprano. Of course, that's not going to happen.

I don't know quite how I feel about "ethnic" makeup; I guess I feel it should be noticeable without being a caricature. That said, I saw some video of Jonas Kaufmann in the recent Covent Garden OTELLO and thought that his makeup was _much_ too light. Again, Otello should not look like a minstrel performer; but if he is not significantly darker than the people around him, then the whole point of the story is lost. On the basis of the video I saw, it just looked to me like Covent Garden was going to really ridiculous lengths not to offend anybody.

*Edited to add:* I keep reading the term "yellowface," as though it's a kind of makeup. I know what "blackface" is, but..."yellowface"? Does this mean that white singers playing Cio-Cio-San actually apply (or used to apply) yellow-tinged makeup, or is "yellowface" just a general term for white singers pretending to be Asian onstage?


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Scott Bremer said:


> Michael Chioldi as Sharpless
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He's wonderful! I heard him live a couple years ago in SALOME as John the Baptist.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Woodduck wrote:

*Your argument that "we" have a specific historical context in which "we" must all make certain associations and connections just doesn't wash. Not only do we all view our positions in history and culture differently, but there is absolutely no logical relationship for "us" to discover between the tasteful pursuit of visual integrity in the serious theatrical arts, on the one hand, and white entertainers bootblacking their faces and whitening their lips to create n****r caricatures, on the other. It's rather amazing to me, and a little sad, that some people are unable to keep such distinct phenomena separate in their minds*

I couldn't agree more, particularly with your last two sentences.


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