Move, move, move.
Madame Butterfly at the Israeli Opera, 2022 (Photo: Yossi Tzbaker)
In 1904, a new play called "Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Never Grows Up" appeared on the stage of the "Duke of York" Theater in London.
The story of the flying boy, the romantic triangle with Wendy and Tinkerbell and his war with Captain Hook and the laws of nature became a major success.
For decades the audience filled the four floors of the crowded theater.
The theater is still active today (although the fourth floor has been closed and its contents are significantly smaller).
The local bar is named after James Barrie, the author of "Peter Pan", and the walls of the theater are filled with photos of the original cast of Peter Pan, real-time reviews and other nostalgic reminders of the most famous play ever to play at the theater.
Even the toilets are divided by gender between fairies and pirates.
But even before Peter Pan took the stage for the first time, an event took place in the "Duke of York" theater that changed the cultural world of the 20th century.
The year was 1900, and an American play called "Madame Butterfly" by the playwright David Blasko was performed in the theater.
The play was based on the book by Joe Luther Long, who recounted the story of his sister, who married a missionary who spent a long time in Japan.
The play premiered on Broadway but saw its greatest success in London.
One of those people who filled the Duke of York Theater was the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, then 42 years old. At the beginning of that year Puccini published his masterpiece Tosca, which premiered in Rome and then went to Milan, Buenos Aires and finally to London.
There he saw "The Japanese Tragedy", and immediately realized that this would be his next opera.
In retrospect, it was a good decision.
To say the least.
"Madame Butterfly" by Puccini became one of the most popular operas in the world, it is still performed with great success around the world and on the way it was made into a huge musical on Broadway called "Miss Saigon".
It is not only Puccini's timeless music that captured the hearts of viewers, but also the human story of "Chu Cho", the star of the opera, and her heartbreaking end.
There are more successful operas, but few enter the heart like it.
It's hard to believe that this is a 15-year-old girl. Madame Butterfly at the Israeli Opera, 2022 (Photo: Yossi Tzvekar)
The current version presented by the Israeli Opera, re-directed by Jerzy Krysiak based on the Polish Mariusz Trlinski, succeeds in distilling everything that the audience has come to love about Madame Butterfly in the last hundred years, and blurring the things that have made it a bit outdated over the years.
This is the third time the opera chooses to put on the version of the Warsaw Opera House, with set design by Boris Kudlicka, costumes by Magdalena Tesłowska and Pawel Grebczyk and choreography by Emil Wesolowski.
And that's okay.
A winning horse is not replaced, even if it makes us break our teeth.
Everything that worked in the previous times, worked this time as well.
The famous "humming of the choir" scene, which divides the second act into two parts, managed to break the heart again without words.
The frozen standing of the women.
The horizon that keeps narrowing into the great darkness.
The ship that arrives with great expectations, and inevitable tragedy.
It's a moment that feels like an eternity, and hurts just like a good opera can hurt.
Puccini, again, was proud of the Israeli opera's work with his creation.
In Cho Cho's shoes this time came the wonderful Ella Wasilbitsky, who is slowly and confidently becoming the biggest diva in Israel, but unfortunately I have no way to express an opinion on her appearance this time.
I actually came to see an evening where Aurelia Florian from Romania starred - who gave a fine performance, even if it was hard to imagine her as a 15-year-old Japanese girl. The tenor Ditiuk Valentin gave a very clean version of Pinkerton, and the combination between him and Florian in the duets were eloquent and touching.
Puccini's tragedy, in a clean and precise performance by the opera orchestra conducted by Dan Ettinger, reaches its climax precisely in its small moments.
Shay Bloch in the role of the maid Suzuki and the American Anthony Webb in the role of Guru stand out in such small roles, which deepen the opera and give it a timeless flavor.
The mimes, which have become the hallmark of Terlinsky's production, help convey to the audience what is happening on stage without words.
It seems that for most of the audience, the subtitles were unnecessary this time.
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Total identification with Madame Butterfly.
Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) at the opera house, "The White Lotus" (Photo: Fabio Lovino/HBO)
The opera premiered in Tel Aviv with perfect timing, alongside the second season of "The White Lotus" - which flutters quite a bit to the music of Puccini, and Madame Butterfly in particular.
In one of the best segments of the season, Tanya is invited to the Teatro Massimo, Palermo's famous opera house, to watch an opera.
At first she feels a bit like "Chu Chow" herself, when she is dragged somewhat against her will to a place that feels foreign to her, but as soon as she gets used to the atmosphere she also begins to fall in love with it, and even waves goodbye to a local woman whom she mistakenly thinks is the "Queen of Sicily" .
The climax of the scene comes when Tania realizes how much she can sympathize with Choo Choo, telling about how she still believes in the love of her husband who abandoned her.
"I will continue to hide, so as not to die, until he comes and calls me 'my dear little woman,'" Choo Choo sings in Italian, but the language barrier does not interfere.
Tanya, who suspects that her husband is cheating on her, bursts into tears.
Her opera companion holds her hand and cries with her.
Many in the world began to suspect that Tanya's end would be similar to Cho Cho's, but in retrospect (and without making spoilers), it was mostly a perfect television moment, and one that could (and should) attract new audiences to the opera, to experience these moments of distilled emotion , which wake up every time anew in the opera house.
An Australian study found that 22% of operas ended in suicide, of which 56% were women.
An American psychological study suggested that regular opera goers are more open to the idea of suicide as a romantic act.
This theory is called the "Madame Butterfly effect", and sorry for the spoiler in advance.
Japanese culture is full of suicide rituals.
We know some of them as "spoko", "kamikaze", "junshi" or "harikiri".
It is difficult to judge them by Western standards, and perhaps that is why the end of "Butterfly" feels different from the fate of other operatic heroines.
It's not a sacrifice, it's a small victory.
Choo Choo chooses to keep her dignity.
And maybe, just maybe, it's 2022's easy interpretation of a story from the late 19th century, trying to empower an 18-year-old girl who just couldn't take this world anymore.
I'm sure we'll see this opera again.
I wonder what will be the next innovation in the world of Butterfly.
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