Madama Butterfly (2006) (Metropolitan Opera)

The Met has been performing this beautiful production of Puccini's popular Madama Butterfly since 2006. And thirteen years later, it is still incredible. The production by Anthony Minghella is more theatrical than it is operatic, in my opinion. By that I mean the staging is not grandiose like you expect opera to be. The set is rather bare, consisting mostly some screens, some chairs and a large mirror. There are a couple of dozen people that play actual pieces of the scenery, like a kindergarten play in which the trees are played by children. Here, they are dressed and veiled in black like the bunraku puppeteers and they carry lanterns, flowers and birds. It is beautiful and sufficient, don't get me wrong but it is not operatic. The scenery at the end of the first act is especially beautiful with the falling butterflies and stars and lit lanterns. The enormous mirror that makes up a slanted ceiling is a mystery for much of the show. The opening scene makes dramatic use of it, but the mirror is really there for 3 hours and 15 minutes to create the final striking image of the fallen Butterfly, red sash cutting diagonally across the floor and mirror to great effect. The colored lighting creates beautiful silhouettes, and the figures against the white screens, still as a portrait, are highly artistic.  The silhouettes at the final bows are gorgeous. I'm not sure if the puppets add much more than what a real kid might have brought, but it does make the production a little more Japanese (read: authentic?).

I love Puccini, but this is not my favorite score of his. It is not nearly as melodic as Tosca or Turandot. He still creates wonderful harmonies but the music meanders and infrequently resolves--is that the difference between showtunes and opera? It quotes the Star Spangled Banner and uses East Asian instruments to evoke Japanese music. None of the arias are particularly memorable. I remember Un Bel Di because it is a pivotal aria for Cio Cio San in her emotional development but I might not recognize it.

The story is a tragedy. It features an American in Japan singing in Italian. The naval lieutenant Pinkerton is sleeping his way around the world, as one does in the military. At the turn of the twentieth century, America has forced open Japan by gunboat at the port of Nagasaki. He rents a house, has a fetish, finds a wife and commits statutory rape (albeit in a beautiful scene)--young Butterfly is only 15 though apparently she looks as young as ten (because westerners can't tell age in Asians?). He intends for the marriage to be temporary but it's very real and permanent to Butterfly/Cio Cio San. And so naturally he returns to America and gets married to a white woman, leaving his wife and (unbeknownst to him) child, and leaving his problem to be solved by the State Department, like the consul wants to be bothered by immoral and callous military men. And then even the consul demurs to the poor housekeeper to break the news to Butterfly. In short, there are some questionable race and gender politics in this story that probably didn't even occur to playwright Belasco but in 2019 we are more enlightened. Consequently, some of the dialogue is funny and some of it a little cringey.  We can overlook it because Butterfly's love is genuine, though at 15-18 years old, what does she really know of love? If you can get past that, the tragedy is heart achingly beautiful.

Soft Power (Off-Broadway) (2018)

Soft Power is a musical within a play written by David Henry Hwang after a traumatic experience (or rather two related ones). He is actually a character in this semi-autobiographical piece. It is a satire, an inverted retelling of The King and I set in 2016 America, a strange and tumultuous land. Hillary Clinton plays the inverted would-be king, and Xing Xue is a Chinese expat who plays "I", the protagonist in a yellow savior love story (would love for Hillary to see this). It is so much funnier than I expected. And the music and choreography are actually pretty good. Hwang turns his anger into an intelligent story about Chinese and American culture. It is full of sharp observations about us. Some of the punch lines hurt a little considering we're still in the mess of 2016 but that only makes the themes more relevant.  I don't know how the production has changed since the middling reviews from its premiere in California but I thoroughly enjoyed the show.  The predominantly Asian cast is delightful.

Fleabag (2016-9)

Fleabag is the freshest breath of air in a television landscape rife with high quality programming. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is wicked clever. Her writing is witty. Her delivery is perfect. Her character is complex. Her frankness is refreshing. And breaking (and re-constructing) the fourth wall is a brilliant device used to great comedic effect. All the characters are great, but I particularly like Fleabag's sister Claire. Her character is hilarious and maybe kind of relatable.  I'm only sorry the series is so short, just six hours in all.  But a brilliant six hours it is.

Blue Planet II (2017)

Blue Planet II is an astonishing 7-part nature documentary series from the BBC. This has taken the nature documentary to new heights. The filmmakers have managed to capture things on camera that have never been seen before by mankind, things that humanity had no idea about.The camera quality is so sharp and beautiful. The camera is patient, and it pays off. David Attenborough's narration is wonderful. There is so much suspense watching the sea life move and act in ways I've never even thought of before. It's a magical series I highly recommend. 

Coriolanus (2019) (The Public Theater)

I was not familiar with Coriolanus. It is not one of Shakespeare's more often performed plays. One of his later tragedies, Coriolanus takes place in ancient Rome. It features a war hero on the verge of being named consul if he could just get over his contempt for the plebians that make up the majority of the city. And when the people finally reject him, he takes vengeance on the city. He's not the most sympathetic hero. He's actually extremely unsympathetic. Jonathan Cake plays Coriolanus with a very deep, almost Bane-like voice. It's hard to take him seriously because he screams so many of his lines. I feel like we never get an adequate explanation for why he has so much contempt for the regular people except for class hierarchy. It seems unfounded, too extreme. Maybe that played better in hierarchical Elizabethan England. And then, when the patricians blame the plebian tribunes for exiling Coriolanus and making him mad, I lost it. It's as if Coriolanus is put up on a Superman-like pedestal. Who is this guy that he can do no wrong in their eyes? Because he is so obviously wrong. The problem wasn't the exile. It was that they didn't execute him in Act I.

Let's just also put it out there that the Public spent up all its budget on the amazing production of Much Ado About Nothing earlier this summer. The costumes here looked like something out of The Walking Dead. They're dirty and torn. The set looks like a slum. And yes, the set moves, but it's not as expensive looking as the beautiful estate from Much Ado About Nothing. The soundtrack also pales in comparison. And it drizzled for about a half hour of the performance. They valiantly performed through it, but it would've been nice if we had stayed dry.

Salt Fat Acid Heat (2018)

Samin Nosrat's Netflix documentary based on her book of the same name is revelatory. It is part cooking show, part travel documentary. She boils down good cooking to four basic elements, each of which she explores in four different different episodes in four different locales. Nosrat is a student of the world. She shows off her Italian and Spanish skills. And she impresses with her knowledge of different food cultures. Nosrat is a character. She gets so excited about food, it is deeply moving to watch her eyes light up with joy and to see her eyes tear up at the beauty. Her laugh is infectious. And her food looks delicious. She is the fun, funny, down-to-Earth culinary-expert friend that everyone wants to have.

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Jim Jarmusch's latest is a zombie movie unlike any other. It's not a horror movie. It's a comedy, an unconventional one at that. It breaks the fourth wall. It has a huge cast of familiar Jarmusch faces in bit parts. The humor is kind of awkward, off kilter. Bill Murray and Adam Driver are perfect for the dry, slow-paced, often deadpan jokes. I'm starting to like Adam Driver more in his comedic work. There are a lot of seemingly irrelevant characters. Surely there is something Jarmusch is trying to say about the outcasts of Centerville, a small American town (village?) with a cast of lonely characters. I'm not quite sure what. The movie takes a wonky turn at the end. It wouldn't have been how I ended it, but I'm not entirely unsatisfied cause it's appropriately bonkers.