Every time the wonderful tenor James Valenti, who was singing Pinkerton, in the first act of Madame Butterfly should sing some of his wonderful top tunes during the first act, it seems like the conductor Maurizio Benini did his outmost to lett the orchestra sound as powerful as he ever could, so that the orchestra sound was drowning it for the tenor. That was not any nice.

And in fact, during the first act. If Maurizio Benin has used his musically intelligence, he could have got the orchestra to sound even more delicious, than it did by letting it play some pianissimo when it was was possible. But no, for him there were no sign of asking or giving the orchestra signal to any pianissimo. And I am sure that Maurizio Benini could not be deaf, and couldnt hear that he made a wrong balance between the orchestra and the soloists on stage. – Well critic colleagues of mine, tryed to persuade me that the accustic is hopeless, but it was strange that this drowning only happend when it was towards the tenors top tunes, and not to the other singers.

Remember,  there is some thing called pianissimo, when it is being used, it can be extremely effectfull and beautiful
. In Puccinis Madame Butterfly, also in the first act, there are plenty of places, where a pianissimo can became wonderful.

The Opera de Paris cant live with this kind of behaviour, they must remember that they have a duty towards their clientelle, the audience.

I dont know if Mauricio Benini dont like the tenor James Valenti, or had prefered an other tenor in the role as Pinkerton, and that is not of my business, but they are both payed to do their job, and the audience expect to get what they pay for.

Now it is time for the Operachief at Opera de Paris, to take a seriouse talk with Maurizio Benini, and eventually give him a warning, not to let this happen again. or kick him out of the operahouse.

Last time this appeared for me wass during my time as Music chief of the Aalborg Symphoni Orchestra, Denmark, where a well known international conductor (I shall not mention his name), didn´t like the wonderful Norwegian soprano guesting. During all the rehearsals every thing was fine, but when it came to the conserts the conductor did all he could to overdue the sopran. That conductor never came back to the orchestra as long time as I was boss there.

But when this is said.-  The Madame Butterfly performance at Opera Bastille is first class. I must admit that when I first time should write critic about it, was just after Robert Wilsons Peer Gynt premiere in Oslo, And i was so fat up of all his stylistic ideas. But time is going, and I must admit that this time i liked it very much. Micaela Carosi was outstanding in the titelrole, one of the best sopranos in this kind of roles right now. Enkelejda Shkosa good as Suzuki

. Carlo Bosi gave a great figure as Goro and Anthony Michaels-Moore sung wonderful as Sharpless. In addition is was a pleasure to enjoy a handsome young very well singing Vladimir Kapshuk as Prins Yamadori. Furthermore it was a pleasure to enjoy this evenings youngest artist Randy Razafijaonimanana (?) as the son of Cio-Cio San. What a good young talent!

In Madame Butterfly´s second and third acts many difficult parts the orchestra sounded wonderful, and in these two acts, strange, the could play pianissimo, – where did they find out of that? Or was that because the tenor, James Valenti, was not on stage, so the conductor Maurizio Benini didn´t need to spoil it for him. Or has the conductor used all his energy during the first act? But it sounded great. It was sometime going very slowly, but in combination with the deliciouse staging by Robert Wilson, it was a big success.

I am sorry to be so direct, – but something was wrong in the accompagnement from the orchestra during the first act. every one could hear that!