Cio-Cio-San and Sadayakko: Japanese Music-Theater in Madama Butterfly

Groos, Arthur

doi:10.2307/2668273

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In a series of influential articles, Arthur Groos has shown that the "self-styled" Imperial Japanese Theatrical Company's second European tour (1901-2) had an enormous impact on the composition of Madama Butterfly, particularly because these performances starring a Japanese woman named Sadayakko comprised Puccini's "first direct contact with Japanese musical theater." 54 The troupe, led by Sadayakko's husband, Kawakami Otojiro, was not classically trained, yet Western audiences assumed they were presenting an accurate glimpse into traditional Japanese theatre, especially kabuki. Since audiences could not understand the Japanese language, Kawakami's troupe reduced their plays to what one Italian publication dubbed "rapid and violent pantomimes," staging mostly wordless spectacles that left Westerners, including Puccini, with the impression that Japanese culture leads "ineluctably to the inevitable resolution in death, especially by ritual suicide," which Sadayakko repeatedly and memorably performed.…”

Section: Butterfly's "Pure Sacrifice"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Frankenmom: Theatre as History in Deconstructing American Celebrity Motherhood

Roxworthy¹

2015

Theat Surv

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When Paper magazine attempted in 2014 to “break the Internet” (as its cover declared) by publishing French artist Jean-Paul Goude's photos of reality star Kim Kardashian brazenly displaying her infamous derriere, the public reprimands to Kardashian from fellow celebrities quickly zeroed in on an even more essentializing aspect of her identity. As actress Naya Rivera posted, “You're someone's mother.” Singer Lorde articulated Kardashian's transgression even more simply, retweeting the photos along with a single word that served as a hex: “mom.” The judgment of her female peers seemed to be that Kardashian, who gave birth to daughter North West in June 2013, should have known better than to flaunt her sexuality on the public stage now that she was a mother. Meanwhile, in a related realm, an American celebrity tabloid such as Us Weekly can generate annual advertising revenues of $403 million (that magazine's 2013 figure) with a profit model based on spectacularizing celebrity mothers and appraising their so-called “baby bumps.” Former US Weekly editor-in-chief Janice Min coined the term “Frankenmom” in a now-notorious 2012 New York Times article about the pressure she felt to regain her pre-pregnancy body after the birth of her third child. In that article, she paid penance for “our ideal of this near-emaciated, sexy and well-dressed Frankenmom” that she had helped create through celebrity journalism. (Kardashian's decision to pose nude in Paper was later explained by celebrity outlet TMZ as a gesture “to show the world how she bounced back after giving birth to North West.”) Despite the personal pressure she experienced as a mother, Min boasted that because of her magazine's focus on maternal bodies during her time as editor (2003–9), American novelist “Tom Wolfe once remarked, ‘the one thing that Us Weekly has done that's a great boost to the nation is, they've probably increased the birthrate.’”

show abstract

Section: Butterfly's "Pure Sacrifice"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Frankenmom: Theatre as History in Deconstructing American Celebrity Motherhood

Roxworthy¹

2015

Theat Surv

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although the difference between the Western and Japanese musics ofLt. Pinkerton and Cio-Cio-San is introduced musically with .Puccini's version of a Japanese folksong, "Echigo jishi" for Butterfly's entrance, it appears that Puccini's listening to the music of Sadayakko was the key to making Madama Butterfly a "Japanese opera" (Groos 1999).9 Thus, a late-nineteenth-century Japanese export to Europe became an inspiration for an intercultural opera that still resonates today. Unlike The Mikado, which reinterpreted Japan to criticize Britain and was re-exported to other parts of the world, which added their own interpretations, Madama Butterfly used Sadayakko as a cultural import to Italian opera, where she remained a Japanese cultural "other."…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Music and Dance as Export and Import: A Case Study of Japan in Europe, and Hawai'i in Japan

Kaeppler¹

2013

yearb. tradit. music

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay explores music/dance as a cultural export and import, and how it may be changed and interpreted/reinterpreted by the exporter and importer, using Japan as a case study. Although I am a Pacific anthropologist, I have studied a variety of Asian musics and dances, as well as Pacific ones. I started my studies of Japanese music and dance forms in Hawai'i and extended them in Japan, especially my studies of gagaku, bugaku, and kagura. I also studied Hawaiian music and dance with some of the most knowledgeable and venerated Hawaiian teachers. But along the way, I stopped my earlier studies of violin, piano, voice, and ballet/modern dance to concentrate on what might be considered “exotic.” In this essay, I combine my interest in Japanese and Hawaiian musics/dances with my interest in concepts of “the exotic.”

show abstract

Composing racial difference inMadama Butterfly: tonal language and the power of Cio-Cio-San

Tsou¹

2014

Rethinking Difference in Music Scholarship

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cio-Cio-San and Sadayakko: Japanese Music-Theater in Madama Butterfly

Cited by 8 publications

References 1 publication

Frankenmom: Theatre as History in Deconstructing American Celebrity Motherhood

Frankenmom: Theatre as History in Deconstructing American Celebrity Motherhood

Music and Dance as Export and Import: A Case Study of Japan in Europe, and Hawai'i in Japan

Composing racial difference inMadama Butterfly: tonal language and the power of Cio-Cio-San

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About