Soprano brings perfect pitch to classic ‘Madama Butterfly’

By Guy D’Astolfo

The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

YOUNGSTOWN — Misook Yun will revisit the lead role of Cio-Cio San when Opera Western Reserve presents Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” on Nov. 7.

The Korean-born Yun, a soprano, has a keen sense of the tragic role. She has done it several times in the past, including performances at Youngstown State University and Valley Lyric Opera in Greenville, Pa.

In a voice that can almost make time stand still, she sang an aria from “Butterfly” during a recent press conference at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Afterward, the voice professor at YSU momentarily choked up as she described her character during an interview with The Vindicator. “Bring a handkerchief,” she advised opera-goers.

Cio-Cio San is a 15-year-old geisha in Japan, who marries an American naval officer. The wedding is a lark for her “husband,” Lt. Pinkerton (sung by Clayton Hilley of New York), but not for Cio-Cio San.

Pinkerton soon leaves Japan, and Cio-Cio San is left behind to pine and dream of the day he returns. When Pinkerton learns several years later that Cio-Cio San has borne him a son, he notifies her that he is returning to Japan. Cio-Cio San is elated, but her joy is crushed when Pinkerton arrives with his new wife to take his son back to America. She kills herself.

“Madama Butterfly” was first told as a short novel by John Luther Long in 1898. David Belasco, a director-producer, made it into a one-act play in 1900. Giacomo Puccini saw the play in London shortly thereafter, and fell in love with the fragile heroine and her tragic story. He set the play to music in 1904, and ever since it has been one of the most performed operas in the world, even becoming the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical, “Miss Saigon.”

“Madama Butterfly” includes Cio-Cio San’s “Un Bel di Vedremo” (“One Fine Day He Will Return”), one of the most recognized arias in all opera.

OWR’s production will be sung in Italian with English supertitles projected above the Stambaugh Auditorium stage.

David Vosburgh is production director. Susan Davenny Wyner will serve as music director, and Barb Luce is costume designer. Hae-Jong Lee is chorus master.

Brian Keith Johnson, a baritone from Warren, returns to Opera Western Reserve to sing the role of Sharpless. He played key roles in prior OWR productions of “Pagliacci,” “La Boheme” and “Le Nozze Di Figaro.”

Irene Roberts and William Clarence Marshall, both of Cleveland, handle the roles of Suzuki and the Bonze, respectively.

Marshall also was in OWR’s “Le Nozze Di Figaro” and has sung with the Warren Philharmonic.