Madama Butterfly and an ode to the Laurentians.

Does he like me?

Alas, that quintessential question us women can all relate to. A few weeks ago, I was so excited to snatch a ticket, a sold-out performance to one of Puccini’s most beloved operas, Madama Butterfly, a masterpiece.

A regular subscriber to the Canadian Opera Company, seated not in my usual seat but in front of a standing-room-only crowd, preferring the classics over any “progressive” works, I noticed that the operatic canon this year ventured strongly towards the latter, much to my disappointment. At the beginning of the performance, an announcement informed us that Eri Nakamura was ill, and an understudy would be performing, to a noticeable gasp of disappointment in the audience. Customary in opera houses in this situation, the director typically appears on stage, to reassure the audience and introduce the understudy. We waited patiently in anticipation, but sickness sometimes afflicts the best of us including the greatest of opera singers, which is perfectly understandable. What bothered me was the laziness with which it was conveyed – it was easier to hide behind an obscured microphone, rather than make the effort to come on stage into the spotlight and address the audience directly. For an opera aficionado like me – introduced to it at age 6, music always bringing Dad into my living room, his heart, love, and voice reverberating within mine, reminding me that I am never quite alone without him. One day, I joke, I will simply travel the world dolled up in ball gowns and petticoats visiting opera houses. I’ve learned as I did from Dad, that in opera, projection and technique really matters but what always matters more is the conductor – drowning the singers with vigorous conducting, takes away from the performance and relegates one’s attention into the wonders of one’s mind rather than the opera, as yawns crawl up one’s throat and posture slumps in one’s seat.

Butterfly is a relatable story of broken dreams. A story of anticipation, of expectation, of hope, of love, of anguish and despair. It was my little modicum of joy, a night to immerse myself with the dramatic and evocative range of a memorable soprano role like Cio-Cio San and lose myself in her heartbreak. A naïve young girl desperately and loyally in love, only to find her partner nonchalantly cheating and betraying her behind her back, as she waits and anticipates his return from overseas, she matures in the process. Like many operas, it all ends in tragedy. But so much more went missing for me. Where were all the stage embellishments, the iconic Butterfly Kimono images, the ancient artifacts of Japanese oriental culture, the beautiful ornaments, the stunning set pieces? Where were all the Geishas peppering the stage in Hikizuri kimonos adorned in traditional Oshiroi Japanese makeup? What happened to the tender expression of passion between the two lovers, during happier times such as their wedding? Did I even sense her innocence and her growth as she realizes her heartbreak and the inevitability of her dreams being broken? Exasperated, I questioned - why does everything need to be re-made into an orderly formation instructing us, like children, into what we are to believe? Why can we simply not be left to indulge, without interference, in the purity and relatability of a broken heart? Angered, I genuinely pondered, was it part of a weird androgynous scheme, a cultural scolding of us into psychological de-souling?

A subpar performance in my view, fitting in well with the mediocrity in Canada taking foothold as the “new normal.” Why expect excellence when excellence is the exception? Why expect a functioning meritocracy when ironically, in the spirit of diversity, fairness of opportunity is exclusive? What happened to our western values, our culture, our confidence, our self-determination? How can we expect to innovate in an environment of mono-maniacal thinking, where our creative instincts are naturally stifled? Creativity is about experimentation, it is inherently about freedom, freedom to think, freedom to create, freedom to dislike, freedom to fail, freedom to disagree, freedom to take risks. Creativity is about dynamism. Where was all the dynamism in this performance? I wondered whether I genuinely miss reveling in Butterfly’s naivete and her sexiness, her femininity and her womanhood, her teasing and her playfulness? That iconic Butterfly image, typically an unforgettable fixture in this performance, was decidedly hard to spot. It must be me, I thought. Or was it? Why could I not sense her hopeless longing and devotion to him, her angst, her expectations, and her sorrow - that he may have in fact forgotten her? This was in fact the entire point of this opera! Her anguished wait and anticipation played out instead, in a long, drawn out, dreadfully boring scene of suspended nothing, with Butterfly and Suzuki (her maid and confidante) and Sorrow (a real-life child, her son) – sitting patiently waiting and waiting and…waiting. Revolving at an agonizingly slow speed with nothing going on onstage seemingly for hours, without any clear signal the audience was left on its own to imagine a ship carrying Lieutenant Pinkerton arriving away from a distance. I thought, surely, this must be dreadfully boring for these singers, as it was for me. The underlying parallel was palpable: the emptiness and stillness permeating the performance was meant to thrust us back to the trauma imposed by the tyrannical Covid era. How odd I thought – and why? I learned that it was intended as the depiction of the Japanese concept of ma, the space between all things. During One Fine Day, in an immediately recognizable vocal libretto, as Butterfly convinces herself with calm certainty and fleeting confidence that Pinkerton will return, her voice mounting to a hysterical frenzy, I thought, surely, this Aria will make me forget it all. But it didn’t.

A pure and relatable story of love, faith, and sorrow metamorphosed into undertones of entitlement, power, unchecked privilege of the American male bravado, the impact of colonialism, gendered violence, ethnical stereotyping and cultural appropriation. Implied against the backdrop of the American elections, I thought, surely, have we not had enough? Can we simply not respect the American people for the choice that their majority had made and a clear mandate that they issued? Why can we not strive for a balance to dutifully respect and protect minorities whilst granting the majority their ruling power? Even at the opera, for these few moments, could we simply not be left alone to relate to the human emotion of love, of longing, of devotion, of hope, of magic, of anticipation, of passion, of heartbreak and despair? Why politicize such universal human emotions into something so un-human? Why rob our human experience of their authenticity for the simple reason of needing to be virtuous, at nearly every turn? In one particularly poignant scene, Butterfly, Suzuki, and Sorrow are waiting for her lover to return, when Suzuki informs her that they will not have any money left if they wait much longer, as they are poor. As she waits for the normal to return, to have agency and control over her life again, as most of us have since the pandemic, we are left wondering - if things do not go her way, our way, what will be? The normal to return? Things going our way? I sat puzzled in amazement. The normal – is not returning. Things – are not going our way. Not in Canada, and not for Butterfly. The Laurentians are dictating, and we are here to follow. This is not a republic, Canada is not a country governed in the interests of the people, and for the people. In the wise words of Bruce Pardy :

“Canada is a country in retreat, more interested in redistributing wealth than in producing it, more resolved to administer than to build, and more prone to languish than to strive. Its people traded freedom for the appearance of safety, and competition for the solidarity of victimhood. Its culture punishes risk and rewards conformity. Its elites collaborate with foreign powers and global institutions. They sacrifice the interests of the people to plunder the country of what remains of its prosperity.”

I sat bewildered and in anguish, wondering about our government’s insistence on a tit-for-tat tariff war. I thought about the inevitable destructive impacts on my immensely rich, beautiful, and vast Canada. Baffled, I wondered why in diplomacy, it has suddenly become so hard to think logically, why for instance we fail to strive to understand our opponent to negotiate with them productively, resorting instead to antagonism when that is obviously so ineffective? Angry by the equalization programs dividing our union, a confederation of provinces, with the government trampling over our provincial jurisdictions, and misguided taxes not only harming but intending to decimate entire industries. The growing divide between our provinces with Eastern Canada nonchalantly violating the rights of the West, bringing the West to the breaking point of their patience. Trapped by a welfare-fixed mindset infusing our collective, thanks to insidious equalization programs and inter-provincial trade barriers, robbing our industries of so much unrealized potential, and yet leaving us astonished why Canada is on a steep and downward decline in wellbeing and productivity metrics. I thought about our growing social upheaval, our deafening polarization, and the harrowing reality of poverty troubling so many, where a nutritious meal and a warm place sheltering us from the cold, harsh Canadian winters become a luxury. I thought about the friends I lost whom I can no longer find common ground with, and the colleagues who quietly ostracized me for being truthfully outspoken. I thought about the blatant and cruel anti-white racism tarnishing employment opportunities and our right to work, as if being white was not a race nor immutable yet deemed unworthy of legal protections. I wondered whether we will forever stand true, north, strong, and free and if so, for how long? I reminisced about my Dad suddenly left without Mom all those years ago in my childhood only for me to be left to figure it out, all over again. How parallel, the two worlds. Bored and disappointed, I thought about the book I was reading: “Citizen One: The Case Against Digital ID” by Paul G. Conlon, with one prominent phrase reverberating in my mind: “Tyranny is a patient foe. When it resurfaces, its oxygen is charitable-sounding legislation, and its food is propaganda. It will patiently wait decades to creep up on you in the shadows while you sleep.” I again thought about my Dad, and the tyranny he spent his life fleeing simply to give my brother and me a better life, only to find myself right back living in one, full circle. How deeply I miss my one, beloved brother, tragically killed by the pandemic. I was half-sleeping at this opera, wondering when it would all end, despite being all gowned and gloved up. I felt the anguish of tyranny and a Laurentian dictatorship creeping ever so persistently into my soul and wreaking havoc in my heart and my prolonged yet broken dreams, wondering how I’d grapple or endure it. I thought about how we have seen it all before, wrapped in virtue, pushing us as good, judicious all-knowing Canadians marching in the spirit of “Anti-Americanism” carefully rebranded as “Team Canada”, the moralizing great north. But this is not the Olympics, this is a democracy. We are here not to win nor moralize; we are here to assess and to vote. I vowed that I would never be an Anti-American. I apologize to my American friends and colleagues for our collective self-importance. I vowed that I would keep thinking and speaking for myself no matter what it cost me, and that I would fight and persist, as my Dad did, through all our years of hardship. I vowed to stay married to my ethical code.

Do the Laurentians ever wake up? I wish for a regression to the mean and a course correction. I felt the joy disappearing, as surely and as quickly as it did during this, typically magnificent, opera. Even the set design, always meant to be in a Japanese house, set in a Japanese garden, on a Japanese hill overlooking Nagasaki – was merely decorated by cherry blossoms. But cherry blossoms only bloom in season. As with Butterfly’s ultimate suicide with her son seated blindfolded nearby, the fight for freedom is a perilous one: time to look out as it is a slippery and slimy slope.

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