Oliphant Parts

The wife’s out of town, so I took the kids to a performance of Madame Butterfly at a local college yesterday. If you’re not in church on a Sunday, you might as well get some culture, right? This was our first trip to the opera, so we really did not know what to expect. Apparently, the opera is not a jeans and t-shirt venue. I’ll remember that for next time. Also, not everyone on stage is tremendously fat, nor do they wear horned helmets. So, there go my opera stereotypes. It doesn’t help that my only exposure to opera over the past 39 years has been through movies and Looney Tunes.

Being an Italian opera, it was, unfortunately, in Italian. I say unfortunately as I know little to no Italian. Not that it would have mattered, as from where we sat, very little of what the performers sang was clear. Fortunately, there were subtitles. Well, supertitles, actually, projected onto a screen just above the stage. I’m hoping they were accurate, but have my doubts. I am fairly certain Pinkerton’s lease and marriage were not both set for 999 years.

The boy-child’s attention lasted until the opera started, but the girl-child and I enjoyed it, although I admit I was a bit distracted by the boy-child’s constant wriggling and hopping about. I assumed he had to go to the bathroom, but no, it was just boredom. And a desire to stay awake so that he could continue to irritate me. During the second act (hours 6-15 per the boy-child), he sat in my lap and tried to break my thumbs. This kept him entertained and kept me awake (I’ve always had a problem with dimly-lit lecture halls and wakefulness), so for that, I am thankful.

Leaving the theatre/hall, I had but one question: What was the fate of Suzuki? Okay, two questions. But “Where do you runts want to eat?” did not pertain to the opera. In my world, the fat evil bastard Pinkerton’s remorse lasted long enough for him to decide to take Suzuki to America to be Dolore’s nanny. The only condition of her being taken to America and being able to be in the life of the child she loves is that she not tell him of his mother’s identity, the circumstances of her death, or his father’s role in it.

Back in America, the Pinkertons live a seemingly happy life with their newly-extended family. Kate maintains a spotless middle-class home, filling it with pretty trinkets and setting aside a little extra money every month with dreams of buying a bigger home and a higher station in life for her family.

Pinkerton’s naval career continues to go well, with him rising in rank and continues in his horn-doggery to cheat on his wife in every port. He eventually contracts syphilis, which he shares with his dutiful wife. She has a series of miscarriages, and her eventual insanity is at first mistaken for depression over being unfit for motherhood. Eventually, she is driven to madness and dies rather gruesomely while attempting to attack a streetcar. Suzuki, who has devoted her life to the raising of Dolore, must now also maintain the Pinkerton home, not an easy task given that she has not bothered to learn more than very basic English.

Pinkerton’s syphilitic decline is slightly slower and less obvious. Shortly after his wife’s death, he gets his own ship to captain. I assume that by now, WWI is beginning, and Pinkerton, who is supposed to be sailing for Europe the next day. He celebrates by getting drunk and buying prostitutes for the officers on his ship (most of the prostitutes, by the way, being women Pinkerton has sampled and infected already, which does not bode well for his officers). Unfortunately, Pinkerton is either too drunk or too far gone in his disease, and he flies into a rage and kills her after failing to achieve an erection.

Coming (slightly) to his senses, Pinkerton flees, returning home and awaking Suzuki with his attempts to get into the house. She lets him in and tries to keep him quiet so as to not wake up his son. He, on the other hand, is struck by how, through the fog of alcohol, syphilis and an inability to tell one Japanese woman from another, much Suzuki looks like his beloved Butterfly. This excites him enough that he finally gets the erection he was hoping for earlier in the evening, so he tears at Suzuki’s clothing and attempts to rape her. The noise wakes Dolore, who rushes to Suzuki’s rescue by plunging his grandfather’s dagger (kept on the mantle as a keepsake by the Pinkerton’s) into his father’s back, severing his spine. Pinkerton lives, but is now paralyzed (and has once again lost his erection, dammit!).

Suzuki finally tells the boy of his mother’s true identity and the circumstances of her death, and convinces him to let her take the blame for wounding Pinkerton. While there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support her claim of self-defense (he is a known whoremonger and whore beater, and is thought to have raped before), the fact that she is a woman, a foreigner, and servant, she is sentenced to death for attempted murder. It also didn’t help her cause that the wound was in Pinkerton’s back, and that he now starts screaming whenever he sees her. Dolore confesses to the crime but is rebuffed by the judge, who believes it is merely loyalty to the nanny. Suzuki is hanged within the month.

Driven to despair, Dolore takes his own life the day after, which also happens to be 15 years to the day after his mother took her own. The end. What?- not operatic enough? How about if Suzuki’s hangman is a plus-sized woman with a horned helmet who sings very loudly while Suzuki twitches at the end of the rope?

By the way, I’m not working today. I’ve got trees to plant, hoses to roll up, and a back to ache.