Madama Butterfly 2006 (click for video)

A Lamentation on the Dearth of Divas

Yes. I attended the beautiful production of Madama Butterfly opening night Sept 25. Did Cristina Gallardo-Domas meet my expectations? Dramatically, yes. Vocally, she gave too much.

I had only seen her on DVD as Liu which was a strong performance and she gave a lot. But lets face it, Liu is not even half the singng as Butterfly. So kudos to Ms. Domas for being a new standard bearer. Vocally, however, the amount of smile she uses in her singing, and the amount of space she uses with the big mouth technique made me a little nervous. She tends to use the smile technique in the passagio and then opens her mouth really wide to produce big sounds in the upper register which are sometimes strident or have a beat in them. Then she ends phrases early and her voice sounds strained in several areas.

Ms Domas was practically out of steam by the time she got to Cio Cio San's final aria Tu Tu Tu Piccolo Iddio. This beautiful aria is important because it occurs at the end of the opera when one's energies are spent. Therefore, during the opera you must pace your energy and save some voice for that final wonderful climax of opera. Ms Domas had used up most of her energy by that time and seemed almost to collapse on stage whether emotionally or vocally. I read that she said to herself vocally "I can't do this." At this time she resorted to breathing anywhere and looking down at the puppet. It played out as if this scene was so close to her heart strings that the audience was not allowed to come in to the repor between herself and the puppet. What she should have done was sing the whole aria out to the public and used her hand to refer to the puppet. After all, the puppet was a lifeless peice of wood.

Ms Domas is no Theresa Stratas but God bless her for her attempts and her will to do it. She has to make sure that she is not pushing her voice. What she also needs to realize is that Ms. Stratas had vocal nodes which she had unsuccessfully removed several years back which busted her career and can never return to the stage.

All in all I liked Ms Domas because of her dramatic courage and for bringing life to Cio Cio San. I appreciate her tour de force. However, my advice is "get back to Mimi" ASAP.