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Madame Butterfly: The story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Arthur Groos
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Extract

One of the tasks of opera scholarship, broadly defined as an interdisciplinary enterprise, should be to include within its purview areas of investigation that have received little attention in purely musicological research. While it is obvious that libretto studies might form one such focus, there is a broader area that should not be ignored. This is the historical and cultural situation of opera and its reception, a subject usually excluded in formalist analyses and studies of musical sources or performance practice, often with the implicit assumption that the ‘aesthetic world’ of opera is self-contained or has nothing to do with the ‘real world’. Even if one does not subscribe to contemporary theory's penchant for subsuming art and history into textuality, the interactions between opera and its cultural context are many-sided and complex, and deserve full scholarly attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , July 1991 , pp. 125 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 In addition to those acknowledged in later footnotes, this study has benefited from the help of many people: Robert Smith on matters Japanese, Caroline Spicer on bibliography, Karen Swenson on the Correll descendants, Mary Beth Norton, Joan Brumberg and Peter Karsten on American history, and Lane Earns and Brian Burke-Gaffney on Nagasaki history. I owe a particular debt to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jennie and Irvin Correll who have provided information, especially Natalie Correll McIntosh.

2 Funaoka, Suetoshi, Le Journal du Japon de Loti – Sa vie étrange avec Madame Chrysanthème (Yokohama: Yûrindô, 1979)Google Scholar [in Japanese]; Funaoka, Suetoshi, Pierre Loti et l'Extrême–Orient – Du Journal à l'oeuvre (Tokyo: Librarie-Editions France-Tosho, 1988).Google Scholar

3 The fact that Thomas Glover's mansion has survived has helped make it the ‘Madame Butterfly House’ of touristic and cinematographic fame. But the association between Glover (1838–1911) and Tsuru Yamamura (1851–99) is implausible (there is no naval officer, no desertion, and no attempted suicide – Tsuru died following surgery in Tokyo), a sham maintained by popular magazines and tourist brochures. See, for example, Miyasawa, Duiti, ‘The Original Cio-cio-san’, Opera News, 17 (01 1953), 2–5;Google Scholar‘La vera Ciocio-san’, Musica d'oggi, NS 2 (1959), 2–3;Google ScholarCameron, Roderick, ‘The Real Madame Butterfly’, Musical America, 82 (11 1962), 10–11, 46.Google Scholar Edith Correll Spindle, a daughter of Jennie Correll, who had known the Glovers and studied the opera at the New England Conservatory of Music, was outraged over Miyasawa's speculation. Opera News did not print her letter of protest.

4 While Long does seem to have constructed a subversive, anticolonialist relationship with Madame Chrysanthème, the real use of Loti's novel begins with Puccini's librettists. See my ‘Lieutenant F. B. Pinkerton: Problems in the Genesis of an Operatic Hero’, Italica, 64 (1987), 654–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar (a revised and expanded version will appear in The Puccini Companion, ed. Puccini, Simonetta and Weaver, William)Google Scholar; and ‘Illica's Butterfly: The First Version of Act I’, to appear in I libretti di Puccini e la letteratura del suo tempo, ed. Maehder, Jürgen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992).Google Scholar

5 Carver, Mosco, Puccini: A Critical Biography, 2nd edn (London, 1974), 125Google Scholar, identifies her as Mrs Irwin Correl [sic]. On Irvin Correll, see the biographical sketch in The Gospel in All Lands, 23 (10 1897), 465–6Google Scholar and the New York Times obituary, 18 06 1926, p. 23, col. 5; on Jennie Correll, see the New York Times obituary of 10 11 1933, p. 21, col. 3.

6 The Japan Times, 15 03 1931, gives a transcription of ‘Mrs. Correll's talk in full’ as delivered to the Pan-Pacific Club on p. 1 col. 6 and p. 8 col. 4; The China Press, 2 05 1931, p. 13 (section 2, p. 1) and p. 20 col. 4; Mrs. Correl, Irvin H. [sic], ‘Madame Butterfly: Her Long Secret Revealed’, The Japan Magazine, 21 (1931), 341–5, esp. 344f.Google Scholar

7 Pan-Pacific Club transcription: ‘We lived in a big bungalow, but at a very small cost, so there was no missionary extravagance about it. It had a very wide veranda. Now in Nagasaki there were no places for men to go except the saloons, and you know what happens in saloons. There was one very nice hotel called Bellevue, nearly always crowded, and it was not a nice place to live at all, so we made it a point to invite the officers, the wardroom men and the junior messes to come up and enjoy our place, because there was a magnificent view of the bay and it was really charming. They did so, and whether we were there or not they came. Very often in the afternoon we would sit and have tea with them, very often when we came home we found the porch full. Of course, there were never the juniors and the seniors at the same time. But there were young ladies in the family, and that made up for what the juniors could not get during the day.’

8 Johnson, H. B., ‘Nagasaki and its Missions’, The Gospel in All Lands, 23 (1897), 61.Google Scholar

9 See Williams, Harold S., ‘Nagasaki Days’, in Tales of the Foreign Settlements in Japan (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt., 1958), 27–36.Google Scholar

10 Smith, George, Bishop of Victoria, Ten Weeks in Japan (London, 1861), 263.Google Scholar

11 Correspondence of Albertus Pieters to John H. Karsten, Western Theological Seminary Collection, Joint Archives of Holland, Holland, Mich., W88–060, letter of 20 11 1895, p. 4.

12 Earle D. Sims to ‘a lady missionary here’ (probably Elizabeth Russell), quoted in a letter of 12 January 1895 by Albertus Pieters to John H. Karsten, p. 14.

13 Tilley, Henry Arthur, Japan, the Amoor, and the Pacific (London, 1861), 66f.Google Scholar

14 Kipling, Rudyard, From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel, 2 vols. (London, 1900), I, 312–27Google Scholar, here p. 326f.

15 Pieters to Karsten (seen. 11), 12 01 1895, p. 9. On women's missionary work in Nagasaki, see the Heathen Woman's Friend, 13 (1881), 86f.Google Scholar and 134f.; 15 (1883), 25f. and 28f.; 18 (1887), 314f.

16 Pan-Pacific Club transcription (see n. 6): ‘Now on the other hill was a dear little teahouse girl living, as pretty as a picture, and her name was Chô-san. No one ever [missing] anything against her, and she was sweet and pretty and everyone liked her. But after a while we learned she had a lover. They all have lovers I guess if they can get them. The young man was a nice young fellow, but horribly lonely. … But one evening there was quite a little sensation. It was that Chô-san and her baby had been deserted. Poor little Chô-san. When he left her he made promises that he would return soon, and there was a signal to be given when his ship came, so she waited and broke her little shoji open to look out, but never a sign.’

17 After returning from her first visit to the Consulate, ‘Cho-Cho-San looked ruefully back over the steep road they had come’; on her final visit, ‘the maid helped her down the steepest part of the hill’. Madame Butterfly, Purple Eyes, A Gentleman of Japan and a Lady, Kito, Glory (New York: Century, 1898), 66 and 75.Google Scholar However, Long reverses the names of the hills, calling this Higashi Hill, and referring to the mission on ‘the opposite hill’ (p. 8).

18 In an interview in the Jiji Shimpo of 24 12 1935, Tamaki Miura reported that John Luther Long told her that the original Chô-Chô-San survived the suicide attempt, an assertion that is also consistent with the ending of his story ‘Madame Butterfly’. The suicide seems to be a creation of the ensuing play and opera.

19 Natalie Correll McIntosh has two volumes for 1874–9; there were at one time at least seven. I am grateful to Irvin C. Correll and Tim Nenninger (National Archives) for attempts to locate them.

20 The Gospel in All Lands, 23 (1897), 488Google Scholar lists the date as 24 August; however, a letter of W. H. Smith to Irvin Correll, dated 21 August and addressed c/o the Queens Hotel, Montreal, suggests that their arrival on the West coast was somewhat earlier (General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church, Madison, NJ, 73–44, 1263–1–3:05, letter-book 199). I am indebted to William C. Beal and Mark C. Shenise for their assistance, and for permission to quote from Methodist Archive material.

21 One would like to have heard a ‘brief talk’ in which she ‘spoke with much emotion’ of the conversion of ‘two Japanese children whom she had years ago adopted into her own family’, or her ‘earnest remarks’ on the subject of ‘Girlhood in Japan’, Missionary Woman's Friend, 29 (1897/1998), 360Google Scholar (Philadelphia Branch meeting of 6 April 1898); and 30 (1898/99), 405 (meeting at St Paul's Church on 5 April, 1899).

22 See Schwab, Arnold T., ‘John Luther Long's Birthdate: A Correction’, American Literature, 50 (1978), 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 (Philadelphia: [1895]), with reprints in 1903 and 1905. I will quote from the latest edition.

24 ‘If you should ask [ how he has acquired such a keen insight into the Japanese nature, he might let you into a secret. His sister has been a missionary in the Mikado's kingdom for a number of years, and she writes him letters. From these letters, coupled with a close study of Japanese lore and tradition he has evolved his stories.’ Interview from the Philadelphia Record, reprinted in the Hanover Herald (17 11 1900). I am indebted to Mary Naill Livingston, Long's niece, for this clipping.

25 Grace resided with him at 629 Walnut Street in July 1893; Will, who was removed from his position at the Nagasaki school in September 1894, subsequently found temporary refuge there in April 1895. Methodist Archives (seen. 20), 73–44, 1263–1–3:04, letter-book 198. Jennie and John Luther Long were very close; Irvin Correll officiated at the latter's wedding.

26 John Luther Long's appreciation of his sister's collaboration in his literary career is inscribed in presentation copies: ‘To Jane – the only critic I have who is always right’, Billy Boy (New York, 1906).Google Scholar The first edition of Madame Butterfly (New York, 1898)Google Scholar reads: ‘Allow me, my dear sister, at last, to introduce “Madame Butterfly” – of Nagasaki – and to wish you withal a Merry Christmas.’

27 Madame Butterfly (seen. 17), with further editions in 1900, 1905, 1907 and 1917.

28 New York Tribune, Illustrated Supplement (18 12 1898), 14.

29 A letter of 24 March to the Board of Missions announces that ‘the long journey is over, and quite worn out we reached this delightful spot.’ Methodist Historical Archives (see n. 20), Correll letter file 1259–7–3–77.

30 See the statement of 8 February 1897 by Dr H. W. Boon in the Correll Correspondence file and the date discussed in n. 20.

31 The interview (see n. 6) has Chô-san living ‘very near their home in Nagasaki, when they first arrived in Japan’, apparently confusing their arrival in Japan in 1873 with their arrival in Nagasaki twenty years later.

32 The report of a crowded harbour is historically accurate; a large number of United States naval vessels docked in Nagasaki, expecting to observe the first naval battles in which entire armoured fleets would be engaged. See Johnson, Robert Erwin, Far China Station: The U.S. Navy in Asian Waters 1800–1898 (Annapolis, 1979), 240f.Google Scholar

33 The habit of occidental fathers returning to take with them their Eurasian children appears to have been a distressing reality. See, for example, Cortazzi, Hugh, Dr Willis in Japan 1862–1874: British Medical Pioneer (London, 1985), 55, 238f.Google Scholar

34 ‘Madame Butterfly’, p. 54, and The Rising Sun and Nagasaki Express (29 08 1894). Dr Arnold was thirty-six when he died; in the story, Sharpless jokes with Butterfly about his age, ‘Thirty’, to which the narrator adds: ‘But he was in fact older’ (52). Moreover, Dr Arnold, who married in 1887, left a widow and two small daughters; Sharpless, ‘a young father’, smiles at Butterfly in ‘the good fellowship of new parenthood’ (p. 50). It may also be that the brief shift in Long's narrative, ‘[Chô-Chô-San] called upon the American consul. She saw the vice-consul’ (p. 45), reflects a shift in address: Dr Arnold lived next door to the American Consul at 15 Naminohira-yama.

There was not always a vice-consul in Nagasaki during the early 1890s, and the tenure of Dr Arnold coincides with the most likely date of the tragedy of Chô-san. His predecessor, Edward Amuot, whom the then consul Dr William H. Abercrombie recommended on 14 March 1892, died before notice of his confirmation arrived on 3 June. Dr Arnold was appointed on 21 January 1893 and represented Abercrombie during the latter's leave in the United States from 3 June to 11 September; he remained in office until his death in 1894.

35 On the following, see the Princeton University Archives, General Biographical Catalogue, the Nassan Herald (Princeton, 1878), 27 and 56;Google ScholarThe Record of the Class of '78, Princeton College (New York, 1880), 34;Google ScholarRecord of the Class of 1878, Princeton College: Decennial 1878–1888 (New York, 1889), 56 (photo on p. 50);Google ScholarRecord of the Class of 1878, Princeton: Twenty Years, 1878–1898 (Princeton, 1899), 75.Google Scholar 1am indebted to Jan Buettncr for providing me with the information cited here and below.

36 On the following, see his service abstract, National Archives, Record Group 24, service abstracts of officers vol. 16, p. 99, cited from microfilm 1328, no. 10; obituaries in the New York Times, 30 11 1899; The Army and Navy Journal, 37 (1899/1890), 343 and 405.Google Scholar

37 According to the Omaha's deck log (National Archives, Record Group 24), the ship made the following stops in Nagasaki: 31 Januarv–2 February, 8–12 July 1886, 31 October–16 November 1886; 5–13 March, 7 April–1 May, 1 July–8 August, 29 August–23 September 1887; 19 November 1887–6 January 1888.

38 Record of the Class of 1878, Princeton College: Decennial 1878–1888 (New York, 1889), 56.Google Scholar

39 The papers relating to Sayre's early retirement are in the National Archives, Record Group 24, Bureau of Navigation General Correspondence, January 1896–6 February 1903, Box 46, no. 22651, and Record Group 127, Proceedings of the Naval Retiring Board Convened in the Case of Passed Assistant Surgeon John S. Sayre, 10 11 1896.

40 I am indebted to Gundolf Keil for his help in deciphering the German report, dated 5 June 1896 by Dr A. Fr. Poetting [?].

41 New York Times obituary of 30 11 1899.

42 See the Record of the Class of 1878 (n. 35), 56.

43 See Karsten, Peter, The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of Annapolis and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism (New York and London, 1972), 222–5.Google Scholar

44 See Karsten, Peter, Patriot-Heroes in England and America: Political Symbolism and Changing Values over Three Centuries (Madison, Wis., 1978), 5–6, 180–1, 198, 200, 207, 233Google Scholar, and index under individual names.

45 The following list was suggested by Peter Karsten: John Marshall Bowyer, Carl Bonaparte Brittain, Benjamin Charles Bryan, William Wirt Bush, Washington Lee Capps, Washington Irving Chambers, Fred Lincoln Chapin, Dewitt Clinton Coffman, George Franklin Cooper, William Wirt Gilmer, Edward Everett Hayden, John Calvin Leonard, George Washington Quine, Dewitt Clinton Redgrave, John Marshall Robinson, John Adam Shearman, George Washington Street, Benjamin Warner Wells, Benjamin Wright.

46 According to the annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress (1890), 27, the average age of officers at the head of the promotion list was 44 for Lieutenants, 34 for Lieutenants j.g., and 32 for Ensigns.

47 See the Checklist of United States Public Documents 1789–1909, 3rd edn, I (Washington, D.C., 1911), 649 and 664Google Scholar, for an overview of these two publications.

48 I am indebted to Barry Zerby and Becky Livingston of the National Archives staff for their assistance, and to Jackie Kellachan for checking references for me.

49 Record Group 24, Bureau of Naval Division of Officers and Fleet, General correspondence 1889–96, Box 78, no. 47290.

50 New York Times, 13 02 1895; Philadelphia Enquirer and New York Times obituaries, 15 09 1942; The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 33 (1947), 548f.Google Scholar

51 Johnson, China Station (see n. 32), 235.

52 The Army and Navy Journal, 29 (1891–1892), 898 (20 08 1892).Google Scholar

53 Army-Navy Journal, 899.Google Scholar

54 Deck Log of the Marion, National Archives, Record Group 24; Medical Log of the Marion, Record Group 52.

55 On prostitution in Nagasaki, see Motoyama, K., Nagasaki Hanamachihen (Tokyo, 1937).Google Scholar In diary kept during the Perry Expedition, Preble, George H. noted on 24 February 1854 that Japanese officials told the officers ‘that when the Treaty was signed we could have plenty of Japanese wives’. The Opening of Japan: A Diary of Discovery in the Far East 1853–56, ed. Szczesniak, Boleslaw (Norman, Ok., 1962), 123f.Google Scholar

56 Clara's Diary: An American Girl in Meiji Japan, ed. Steele, M. William and Ichimata, Tamiko (Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, 1979), 38.Google Scholar

57 See Barnes, Elinor and Barnes, James A., eds., The Diary of Dr. Samuel Pellman Boyer. Naval Surgeon: Revolt in Japan (Bloomington, Ind., 1963), 30;Google Scholar on Kangourou, see Funaoka, Pierre Loti (n. 2), 12.

58 For a recent survey of early prelapsarian interpretations of Japan, see Yokoyama, Toshio, Japan in the Victorian Mind (London, 1987);CrossRefGoogle Scholar for moral outrage, e.g., Weppner, Margaretha, The North Star and the Southern Cross, 3rd edn (Albany, 1880), I, 192–5;Google ScholarHarris, Flora Best, ‘A Way to Help the Women of Japan’, Heathen Woman's Friend, 18 (1887), 232–3.Google Scholar A general overview is provided by Lehmann, Jean-Pierre, ‘The Women of Japan – In Reality and Fantasy’, in The Image of Japan: From Feudal Isolation to World Power (London, 1978), 68–96.Google Scholar

59 Cortazzi, Dr Willis (see n. 33), 243f. The custom seems to have been widespread, except among missionaries or those who had brought families: a Japanese directory of foreign residents of Yokohama in 1861–2 documents the presence of a musume or young Japanese woman in 30 of 79 households. Williams, Harold S., ‘Yokohama Musume’, in Foreigners in Mikado-land (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt., 1963), 106–10.Google Scholar

60 Eizo, Nakano, Kuruwa no Seikatsu [Life at the Licensed Quarters] (Tokyo: Yukaku-sha, 1972), 167f.;Google ScholarTaro, Nakayama, Baishô Sanzennen-Shi [Three-Thousand-Year History of Prostitution] (Tokyo: Yôshundô, 1927), 625–7;Google ScholarSunao, Adachi, Yûjo Fûzokusugata Saiken [A Close Survey of the Customs and Manners of Prostitutes] (Tokyo: Tenbosha, 1976), 315.Google Scholar

61 Tracy, Albert, Rambles through Japan without a Guide (London, 1892), 8–9.Google Scholar

62 Diplomatic dispatches of the period from the United States Consulate at Nagasaki discuss the wills of citizens who had died and left bequests to Japanese mistresses or common-law wives. In some cases, an attempt was made first to find relatives in the United States before carrying out the will.

63 Naval Surgeon (see n. 57), 31.

64 Naval Surgeon, 36.

65 Funaoka, Pierre Loti (see n. 2), 7–40.

66 Alexander, , Grand Duke of Russia, Once a Grand Duke (New York, 1932), 103–5.Google Scholar

67 Grand Duke, 106.

68 Madame Chrysanthème (Paris, 1907), 262 (ch. 50).Google Scholar

69 Hodgson, C. Pemberton, A Residence at Nagasaki and Hakodate in 1859–1860 (London, 1860), 250f.Google Scholar

70 According to the Ricordi Copialettere (1900–1901, vol. 23, p. 371)Google Scholar, Giacosa had Giulio Ricordi telegraph Illica on 20 June 1901 with a request to forward the ‘libri giapponesi’.

71 ‘[The house] he leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years … He did not mention that the lease was determinable nevertheless, at the end of every month, by the mere neglect to pay the rent’ (p. 4).

72 Neither the saké drinking at the moment of the ceremony nor the Shinto priest are called for in the libretto and score. The latter is another example of the historical ignorance of modern Regietheater: the first Shinto wedding did not take place until 1910.

73 A recently discovered letter from Giacosa to Giulio Ricordi in the Casa Ricordi Archives, dated 11 August 1901, explains that Giacosa changed the toast from Sharpless to Pinkerton to make the scene ‘much more biting’.

74 See my ‘Return of the Native: Japan in Madama Butterfly / Madama Butterfly in Japan’, this journal, 1 (1989), 167–94.

75 Extensive institutional changes in the Navy may have prevented his return – the departure and retirement of outmoded ships from the Asiatic station, which were only gradually replaced by new steel vessels. Moreover, revolutions in Hawaii and then in Korea claimed the attention of the United States naval vessels still in the Pacific, leaving Japanese waters frequently unattended. See Johnson, China Station (n. 32), 232–41.

76 See Hervé, Daniel, ‘Loti photographié par Uyeno’, in Le Japon de Pierre Loti, ed. Quella-Villéger, Alain (Poitou-Charentes and Rochefort, 1988), 34Google Scholar, and the photographs on 6 and 61f.

77 Funaoka, Suetoshi, ‘Qui était Madame Chrysanthème?’, in Le Japon de Pierre Loti, 31f.Google Scholar According to Funaoka, Pierre Loti (see n. 2), 37, the chapter in Madame Chrysanthème dealing with the police over difficulties of registration has no counterpart in Loti's diary.

78 I am grateful to Brian Burke-Gaffney for making the attempt, and to Aaron M. Cohen for confirming the lack of such documentation with Suetoshi Funaoka.

79 See Calkin, Homer L., Catalog of Methodist Archival and Manuscript Collections: II (Asia) (World Methodist Historical Society, 1982), nos. JA-15Google Scholar (the most likely source for a photograph of Chô-san), 30 and 153. On Tamaki Miura, see n. 17 and the news dispatch from Turin reported in the Philadelphia Public Leger (15 10 1923) reporting the discovery of Butterfly, feeble and impoverished, on the island of Kiousein.