Mo Zhou Is Flipping the Narrative of ‘Madama Butterfly’ on its Head
When Mo Zhou, an acclaimed opera stage director, started looking for work she had every qualification needed to find success in performing arts.
Originally pursuing a law degree that brought her to the states from China, Zhou caught the theater bug during her time at Bowdoin College. She went on to earn an MFA in Stage Directing from Columbia University, with further training at The Juilliard School, Merola Opera Program, Wolf Trap Opera and Glimmerglass Festival.
During her time in grad school, she started the job hunt. That’s where she ran into her first problem.
“I interviewed for a bunch of Broadway shows, and I couldn’t get a job,” says Zhou. “A producer told me ‘your English is great. You have a very impeccable pedigree. You are very talented, but English is not your first language. Broadway musicals are something so American. So we’re just concerned that there’s just always something intangible you couldn’t understand as an outsider.’”
At the suggestion of a professor, she pivoted to opera, which has a wider global audience. For years, she traveled around the country directing a variety of productions. While she was growing her career, she was also growing frustrated with the issues that plague operas – and the performing arts industry at large – ongoing racist and sexist stories and business practices.
“When I became a director, I realized in the beginning my career would be very easy to shoehorn and pigeonhole as the ‘Asian token’ of a show,” says Zhou. “It’s not only opera, but in theater. One time I was offered an assistant directing position to a white man on a show with Asian subject matter. I personally did not feel comfortable with the material, and was avoiding being pigeonholed.”
Opera has a sexism problem. And a racism problem. And an Orientalism problem. Opera stories can glorify western imperialism while diminishing the culture it’s exploiting. Operas can depict scenes of incredible sexual, physical and psychological violence against women while eroding their agency. Operatic performers are sometimes expected to perform in offensive clothing or makeup.
The comedic plot line of The Marriage of Figaro as a comedy relies on an “impending workplace rape.” In Carmen and a myriad of operas, men would rather kill their lovers than have them be with anyone else. Turandot, Magic Flute are just a few operas whose story hinges on racist and sexist plots and depictions.
So, what’s the deal?
This is not just an opera problem. Critique any hundreds-years-old story through a modern lens, and you’ll find more than just a few harmful depictions. Some traditionalists believe that operas should serve as historical documentation. Some modern audience members, and opera professionals, are demanding that these stories are updated to remove the most damaging features while maintaining the narrative. If the industry is at a crossroads, how can it move forward? Zhou is finding a way.
“I CALL IT THE ‘WHITE WESTERN MALE GAZE,’” Zhou says – she’s talking about the stereotyping, hypersexualization and forced helplessness of Asian women characters in stories written by, and historically produced by, white western men.
These depictions perpetuate tired and harmful lies about women of color. The stories are written quite literally through the lens of white men, who, to say it lightly, had no interest in weaving complexity, or accuracy, into these characters.
And then there was the issue of the Butterfly.
For years, Zhou was asked to direct Madama Butterfly, a controversial Puccini opera. The story follows a 15-year old Japanese girl named Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly) who, in 1904, is married to a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton.
*SPOILERS*
Butterfly, apparently, is so taken by her new husband she converts to Christianity – she is proud to be married to an American. Her family disowns her, isolating Butterfly from her loved ones, with only her maid Suzuki to keep her company. Pinkerton leaves shortly after the consummation of their marriage. Left alone, Butterfly longs for her husband. Three years after the birth of their son, Butterfly is still waiting for his return, while being urged by Suzuki and others to just move on.
Well, Pinkerton does indeed return. However, it’s with his new American wife, Kate. They returned to Nagasaki to take Butterfly’s son, as they wish to raise him in America. Pinkerton is too cowardly to face Butterfly, so he forced Kate to break the news. Butterfly agrees with one caveat – that Pinkerton will come to see her himself. She prays, puts an American flag in her son’s hand, then ends her life.
*END SPOILERS*
Criticism of the depiction of Butterfly is nothing new. Puccini and co-writers Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacos depicted Butterfly as weak and easy to take advantage of. Her marriage, and subsequent life, was that of a sexual object. She loses all sense of self. She longs for white American culture. She has no motivation outside of waiting for her American husband.
“I was offered to assist on Butterfly multiple times,” says Zhou. “I always turned it down, I was sick to my stomach about it.
“THERE ARE PLENTY OF TRADITIONAL OPERAS that essentially glorify violence against women,” says Zhou. “So as a director, every day in the back of my mind I just thought, ‘how can I solve this show, to make it less offensive or problematic, and more connected to modern audiences.’ As an Asian woman director, how can I make this story justifiable to me despite the source material? Then four or five years ago, I had an ‘aha’ moment.”
It wasn’t making a change to the libretto (words) of the opera, nor was it reimagining the plot. Her adjustment was slight: move the timeframe from the early twentieth century to 1946, a year after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, where the story already takes place.
For hundreds of years, Nagasaki was the only port open to the world. During the Edo period, (1603–1867) Japan enforced self-isolation policy (called sakoku) due to the threat of western influence, specifically religious influence and attempts at Christian conversion. Nagasaki became the only place in the entire country to have any influence or insight from the rest of the world.
“I’ve never been to a [Japanese] city where there was so much [western religious] influence,” says Zhou. “Every two blocks, you see a Catholic Church and a local Shinto shrine. So the tension between Japanese and western influence is really present there.”
Then, the atomic bomb.
“It’s a fascinating part of history because neither Japan or America want to talk about it,” says Zhou.
When Zhou met a Japanese-American playwright from Kentucky who wrote a play about her mom’s experience being a Japanese war bride and being brought to the United States, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
“I did some research and realized there were 48,000 young Japanese women that were war brides who married American GIs,” says Zhou. “Some of course married for love. But many, in the aftermath of the atomic bomb, were living in a shattered country. They were scared there would be another bombing. There came to have a sheer desperation of survival, and the promise of a better life in America. They were often branded as traitors or enemies, and rejected by both societies.”
That historical backdrop transformed Butterfly’s story. “I couldn’t justify this Japanese character,” says Zhou. “She was so meek, so eager to please an American. As an Asian, I had an issue with that. But with this new historical backdrop, every motivation becomes so clear. The tension between American and Japanese culture becomes clear. The motivation for her family’s denouncement became clear. Her desire to seek safety in America becomes clear.”
Without changing a word, Butterfly goes from meek and passive, to an active agent, finding a path through the rubble to safety and survival.
“When I shared this concept to my friend with family members who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, she started crying,” says Zhou. “She said ‘this is Butterfly as a Japanese woman, this is the Butterfly I’ve been waiting for my whole life.’”
In 2023, with funding from the University of Michigan, where Zhou teaches, she flew to Nagasaki for two weeks to do meticulous research for the changes she needed to make for her new reworking of Madama Butterfly.
“There was this interesting mix of traditional Japanese and westernized looks in fashion and beauty,” says Zhou. “Once they survived the war, people wanted to wear bright colored kimonos. Then they often had a very westernized 1940s hair do.”
With this new motivation to embrace an American identity, the story changes. “I told [the performer who plays Butterfly] her instead of being a jilted woman crying on the floor, you really need to have a backbone, because in that moment, it’s like a confrontation between your American or Japanese identity. So I would say, everything has much more dignity.”
ZHOU’S NEW Madama Butterfly is running from Oct. 18-20 at Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera. It is produced in partnership with Virginia Opera and Kentucky Opera. Zhou assembled an all-female AAPI creative team to run this production. She wanted to make a full circle choice to put the storytelling in the hands of those the story affects the most.
“Everybody is so excited about this idea,” says Zhou. “It’s all so serendipitous.”
