Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994 TAG: 9401270014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Like the jilted young Japanese geisha in Puccini's hit opera, the Ukrainian soprano knows what it's like to be separated from the people you love by oceans, continents and cultures.
Krovytska says she misses terribly her 15-year-old daughter Christina and her husband Yuri - but she regards her job with the New York City Opera National Company as her big chance to realize her childhood dream to be an opera star.
"I'm here alone [in New York City]," said Krovytska recently in a telephone interview, and the wistfulness in her voice was almost palpable. "And I live hard part of my life, but I have time for it. Because I am alone I have time to study.
"You know, I study this role just two months, less than two months - I never before sing this role. It's very very hard study because it's a very long part. But I love this role so much. I understand Cio-Cio-San because I have my family, I have my daughter. So this is very hard, a mother without her child - so I can understand."
The spectacle of the devoted 15-year-old Cio-Cio-San, used and abandoned by the callous American naval officer Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, is arguably the most handkerchief-dampening role in all of grand opera.
Despite a disastrous opening night a few weeks shy of 90 years ago in Milan, "Madama Butterfly" quickly became one of the most popular operas in history. Composer Giacomo Puccini made a few cuts and tightened up the libretto, and when the work was remounted for a second production it was an instant hit.
Krovytska sees another significant personal connection to the role of Cio-Cio-San in addition to her family situation. When the production premiered for the second time, in the version opera lovers know today, it was the Ukrainian soprano Salomea Krushelnytska who created the role of Butterfly.
"She was a very famous Ukrainian singer. She was good friends with Puccini, and my school where I study was named after her. She was my idol - I always want to be like her. Now I'm singing Butterfly like her, and I'm so happy!"
"Madama Butterfly" is set in Japan in the year 1900. The meek geisha Cio-Cio-San is swept off her feet by Lt. Pinkerton of the American navy, who marries her in bad faith.
But Cio-Cio-San is so eager to become one with her husband that she renounces the customs of her own country, becomes a Christian, bears Pinkerton's child, and stubbornly believes that he will return to Japan one day to claim her.
But when the heartless Pinkerton does come back, he has with him his "real" American wife, and he demands that Cio-Cio-San surrender their son to him. Heroically renouncing her own future, Butterfly gives up her son and copes with dishonor in the only way available to her: by suicide.
It's one of the sudsiest of Puccini's many sudsy plots, but it brings lumps to the throats of all but the most cynical opera-goers.
The most effective Cio-Cio-Sans over the past nine decades have been those singers who have delineated, over the course of the opera's three concise acts, Butterfly's progression from a hopelessly naive girl to a mature woman capable of the ultimate self-sacrifice.
Krovytska says that Butterfly is not a technically demanding role for her. "No, not technically, but if you're, uh, too emotional, this is not easy. If you want to cry really, you can't do this, you must just play and sing."
Is there a temptation to get too involved in the role?
"Yes, but I try to be not too emotional because I can cry really. It's hard, but it's such beautiful music."
Radford's audience will catch this production of "Madama Butterfly" near the beginning of its 28-state run. The 70-member performing ensemble - including a 29-piece orchestra, 27 singers and a staff of 14 - opened in Syracuse on Jan. 23, and will travel from Maine to Florida and as far west as Kansas.
The New York City Opera's National Company is known for no-nonsense traditional productions and young singers, many of whom have gone on to opera stardom. Krovytska described director Frank Corsaro's show as "traditional." The opera will be sung in the original Italian with English supertitles projected above the stage.
Singing with Krovytska will be Patrick Denniston as Pinkerton, Charles Huddleston as Sharpless, Jonathan Green as Goro, the Chinese mezzo Zheng Cao as Suzuki, Daniel Smith as the Bonze, Daniel Mobbs as as the Imperial Commissioner and Yamadori, and Lori Ann Philips as Kate Pinkerton. Christian Smith is stage director and Joseph Colaneri will conduct the orchestra.
Krovytska, who describes her voice as having both lyric and dramatic qualities, is scheduled to perform the Verdi "Requiem" and the Beethoven Ninth Symphony this spring and will sing in City Opera productions of Borodin's "Prince Igor" and Puccini's "La Boheme" this fall.
The Ukrainian singer says that tomorrow night's "Butterfly" should reveal the results of much effort on her part.
"I work really hard because time fly and though I'm younger, you know, we have not too much time. Singers go to 55 or 60 and that's it - you must stop and life go."
Curtain time for "Madama Butterfly" is 8 p. Tickets are $12; children's tickets are $6. Preston Hall box office number is 831-5141.
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by CNB