The Opera Glasses Podcast

Reframing Butterfly Through History

• Michael Jones, Elizabeth Bowman • Season 4 • Episode 2

Share episode

A revered classic can hide a hard truth. We sit down with director Mo Zhou to unpack how Madama Butterfly shifts when you move it out of fantasy and into the charged reality of post–World War II Japan.

Mo charts her own journey from closed doors in commercial theater to a thriving opera career, and then into the heart of a work she once refused to stage. By resetting the opera in 1946 and 1953, during and after the American occupation, she finds inspiration for why characters perform identity to survive, how power dynamics distort intimacy, and where Puccini’s score can be heard as evidence rather than ornament.

What stands out is the research and the reckoning. Mo traveled to Nagasaki, traced documented sources behind the Butterfly myth, and examined how original Asian women’s stories were reshaped by European adapters into familiar tropes – the self-effacing innocent (Cio Cio San) or the menacing “dragon lady" (Turandot). Her production asks us to see Cio-Cio-San as a person of faith and agency, not an exotic symbol: faith in reinvention, agency in the face of limited options, and a dream that collides with structural imbalance. The result is not a softened Butterfly but a sharper one, where history clarifies character and empathy doesn’t absolve harm.

All episodes of The Opera Glasses podcast are hosted by the editor of Opera Canada, currently Michael Jones after Elizabeth Bowman hosted seasons 1 and 2. Follow Opera Canada on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Visit OperaCanada.ca for all of your Canadian Opera news and reviews.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome to the Opera Glasses Podcast, the official podcast of Opera Canada magazine. I'm Michael Jones, your host, and today it is my really great pleasure to be meeting someone for the first time, stage director Mojo, who was born in China and was until recently on faculty at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. She's recently left to focus more on her freelance directing work. She directs primarily opera, has worked in Europe, in Asia, across the United States, and made her Canadian debut in the spring with a production of Madama Butterfly at Vancouver Opera. And now she's back again, this time in Calgary, doing another new production of Madama Butterfly for Calgary Opera. Welcome, Mo. It's really nice to meet you. Thank you, Michael. Thank you for having me. Before we actually talk about Madama Butterfly, let's talk about your work in opera. And I was I was looking at your credits before we started on your website, which by the way, everyone should go to because there are beautiful production photos on it. It's M-O-H-Z-H-O-U.com. And there are amazing production photos. But one of the things that I noticed was that most of your work tends to be in opera. And I always wonder how people who are interested in direction end up working primarily in opera. What drew you to this art form?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's uh it's not a very uh uplifting story, let me put it this way. So I was born and raised in China, came to the United States exactly 20 years ago for undergrad. Um when I first came to the States, I thought I'm I'm going to Hopper Law School. Yeah. Um But then I fell, I I saw, I fell in love with stage directing in theater. So I went to Columbia University for my MFA in directing. At the time, my I'm a big like a classic theater geek. So I wanted to do Shakespeare, I want to do Chekhov, and um, and I also love rocking musicals. Um but by the time I I was about to graduate from grad school, I had a really hard time lending any jobs on Broadway. I at the time, a leading Broadway producer just said, you know, unless we do flower jumps, um, someone like you will never have a job on Broadway. Things you would never say right now, right? But that was over yeah. So I remember I said on the subway.

SPEAKER_01:

Someone said that out loud. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's really funny. Uh oh, I'll finish this Legagenesis story. I will tell you my little comeback story. Like there's a sequel to that. So I just remember I was sitting on the subway crying my eyes out on the way back to like Columbia campus, and I went to my teacher and Bogar's office, and I said, you know, so-and-so said this to me. I think I'm not gonna get a job because you know, I mean I was an international student. So I need to like have enough job liner within three months of graduation where I have to go back to China. And my teacher actually said, you know, um, she said, I always feel like you respond, you respond to music much, much sharper than text. And then you are, you read music and you speak all these opera languages, and opera's art form is much more open to international artists. So she said, you know, maybe you should reach out to those opera companies, you might have a chance. So at that moment, it's really just like a sheer moment fighting for survival and then a legal residency, you know, the work permit in the space. So that I remember that night I went to the library and I just Googled every company in North America and I wrote to every company that, you know, the general info because I don't even know, didn't even know anyone in the business. And then what happened was um the day after Spileto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina wrote to me saying, We are doing a war premier um contemporary opera written by a Chinese composer, uh, and with all performers, our Chinese native Chinese speaker. And now I'm thinking about it, how fun! And then they're saying we're our entire creative team is Canadian. Atom McGoyen was the director. And um they said, we are looking for someone to be the rehearsal translator, would you be interested in doing that? And of course I said yes, and that job essentially was my very first job in opera, and it leads to so many others. So I would say uh if falling to this art form, this industry is really for survival, and then the more I do it, the more I actually fell in love with this like art form and this industry, this like style. So I did all uh I basically just did the traditional, you know, young artist training, processing America, did a Wolf Track, Marila, Glimmerglass, Juilliard, and then assisted in bigger houses until I went out like to go on for like a full-time directing on my own. Yeah. Oh, my little comeback story, if I can, if I may, you can keep it or not. But you know, it's really funny, about three years ago, because also after that, I'm primarily working opera. The thing is, opera book you so far in Vince. Over the years, I did got theater offer, but they are mostly, hey, are you available next month? And I'm sorry, sorry, I'm booked for next, you know, 12 months. So that's how I gradually shift my primary leading opera. But my little comeback story, like piggyback the Broadway producer's comments. Three years ago, my stage theater union in America called me and said, you know, we have identified eight mid-career uh women of color director, actually directors, stage director of color, that we think should be directing on Broadway, and they have not directed there. So they actually facilitated um like a pitch. Like if you think about Shark Tent for theater directors. So we have to do, flew to New York City. They flew all of us to New York City, did our pitch introduction to, I think, 45 leading Broadway producers. And I ran into that person who said to me, you know, Flower Jones, and then he didn't remember me. And he said, you know, he's so brilliant. I was like, you know, um, I really hate to remind you that this like many years ago, I was in the in your in your office and you said this to me. And he he was so embarrassed and he said, you know, you're doing so great. So so oftentimes I thought about it, you know, life is like that. So it's just like you know, you never take no for an answer, and there's gonna be detours this way, one way or the other. And the key takeaway for me is you just keep showing up and do do your work, do good work, and eventually, who knows, you know. You always have this like very interesting, you know, comebacks for me, at least for my career.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Now you've done new opera, um, but you've also done a lot of of the standard rep. Are there any pieces apart from Butterfly, which we will talk about, but are there any pieces that particularly appeal to you as an artist? Like, I'd like to revisit this one, or I know this one so well, and I've never had a chance to do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, following love, like the opera really got me thinking, like interesting opera directing was actually Verdi's Don Carlo. I saw it at the Met 16 times. I remember I got so obsessed with the production, I didn't eat lunch for like a month. I just saved, you know, my all my lunch money so I can sit in every corner of the house and just watch it. So I always say, you know, anything Verdi, especially Don Carlo. But, you know, people know these days, most people know me through my butterfly, but I often have to remind people I only did my very first butterfly less uh like slightly over a year ago. So I didn't do my first butterfly till 2024. And I always like to joke that before I said yes to my first butterfly, my directional repertoire is very diverse. I start from Monti Verdi to World Premiere. So I always fall in love with whichever product I'm currently working on. But if I had to say I have a special interest or special niche, early music has always been my passion. I love everything like early music. It because it's giving you so much freedom, and I also like the music. I like how individualized you can set the story for the performers, and also, you know, because early music there at the time there was no like, you know, modern dramaturgy, like there's no three-dimensional character building. So it kind of really tells the director need to have a very strong point of view walking to the production. So for instance, in 2023, I did La Calisto, which we call it like futuristic Baroque, like a sci-fi Baroque at the Glimmer Glass Festival. So I always miss that part of me. But um, but I also love butterfly, you know. It's a it's a piece um I was actually thinking about it this morning before our interview. Um it's very, it's very interesting and sometimes ironic for a piece I personally so reluctant to for so long. In a way, I feel like this is the piece changed me and inspired me the most.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, let's talk about your reluctance to do it. Yeah. If I were being polite, I would describe Madame a butterfly as problematic for us in 2025. Yeah. Which uh that would be my polite way of saying it. I think the piece itself rings of exoticism and glamorized glamorization of a culture that it's also appropriating and telling a story of, and it's it's a highly colonial piece. Um, is that some of where your your reticence came from to approach it?

SPEAKER_00:

So I always gave everyone this, like, you know, story. It's my personal story. Everyone said that, every time I said that, people just cringe and thought, like, it's unbelievable, but I'm just gonna say it again. Uh, I always remember during the first week when I was in the States, I was walking down a small town. I was in a college town in Maine, Brunswick, Maine. Um, I was on my way to the grocery store, and a very, very old gentleman, I wasn't I to this day I'm not sure if he's 100%, you know, clear his mind or he has some form of dementia. I don't know. But I was just 18 years old walking down the street as the only you know Asian in town, probably. And he just stopped me and called me Chow Chao Sung and walked away. And uh at the time I wasn't immersing opera well enough, so I have no idea what he should what he meant. It was not until years later I was working opera that I clicked to me and said, oh my god, that's that's probably what he was um referring to to me in that moment. But then, you know, then I become an opera artist, I feel like you have such a polite way. I'm gonna use the not so polite way, okay. You know, as an Asian woman, I always feel like so much the what I call hip hypersexualization, fetishization of Asian women in all the Western mainstream culture has a lot to do with the popularity of this opera. So I was offered many times to assist and also to direct butterfly. And I pretty much spent a decade just saying no because I feel like I lived through that. And in a way, I always say, you know, every Asian woman, when you work in in the West, we all have a child lens in front of us. Um so I do not want to touch this piece like uh without doing it for a purpose. Because I feel like if you don't really have a critical, like a grasp of this piece, you are basically just reinforced the harm on my community. So that's why I've been saying no for a long time. Um, however, as a director, you know, as you know, in the back of your mind, you're already thinking, on the back burner, you're always thinking, okay, if I really have to do butterfly, how can I tell the story that makes sense to me as an Asian woman? As you said, you know, not only butterfly, but so many of the Asian characters in the show are just really built on caricature. And then, especially in Act One, Puccini, because you know, as their opera director, all we ever do is really justifying the music. So Puccini's music in Act One is problematic. So in a way, he kind of pick and choose a lot of Japanese music, and then like in modern vocabulary culture appropriation, but we got also gotta keep in mind creators at that time are dealing with their, we're dealing with their own limitations. So, um, so yeah, so in the back of my mind, I just always thinking, how could I make butterfly work that makes sense to me as a first generation Asian immigrant woman? Um then one moment it clicked. Um so I remember I was a political science major in college. So I learned, in college I learned um a very unique page of history. It's about post-World War II, Japan. So very few people, neither Japan nor America, like really talk frequently about this pilot period. It took place between 1945 through 1952, 53-ish, that little six, seven years. Um the official name is called Allied Occupation of Japan, but because it's predominantly led by American General Um MacArthur. So in Japan and the rest of the East Asia, it has always been known as American occupation of Japan. So if you look through that part of history and with the whole American military, like a presence in Japan, and what is really the whole like a dynamic there. And all of a sudden, it just occurred to me that butterfly, the butt, if we set butterfly under this historical backdrop, everything will start making sense. Because the issue for me in the past, everyone keeps saying it's just a fantasy, it's a white fantasy. And that's why I found it problematic. Because her character to me is a myth. It's never real. And it's like she fits into every, like she checks the box of every, you know, white fantasy. And that's my issue, like that's my primary my issue with that opera. Um, but if we set butterfly in that like his specific like backdrop, and very sadly, Nagasaki was, you know, the last place we experienced like, you know, atomic bomb. And um, everything started to make sense to me. So I start thinking, so this idea started cooking in my head for about like a couple of years. Um then I just feel like you know, Act One, we're setting if we could set this piece in 1946. That's one year after the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Everything is rebuilding, but you're still living through like, you know, the aftermath, psychologically, the trauma post-war. And in then, in that time, you know, the entire complex intricacy of post-World War II will heighten all the tension between Japan and American sides. And then it also makes sense why those Japanese characters in that moment will do that. It's in a way they are playing the Japanese, they think the American want to see in order to survive. And then that's my way to, you know, find a way to justify the music, not seeing what Puccini did at the time was okay. Um, but also, uh, because I have to do like before I did my first butterfly, I went to Nagasaki for filters. So I actually spent two weeks in Nagasaki. And I also want to point it out two things. First off, like it's not a coincidence that all previous butterfly myth or Madame Christine's myths, like there are four major source materials. It's no coincidence that all of those, like you know, Genesis or butterfly myth story all took place in Nagasaki. Nagasaki as a city has a unique position in history, Japanese and war history, why this kind of like myth narrative keeps like an occurring foreign naval officer and local geisha apprentice girls. So Nagasaki during the Deiji months, or when Japan shut down the country for 400 years, uh Nagasaki was the only poor foreign trading port opening, like dealing with foreign trading. So, in a way, for 400 years, Nagasaki has always been the front line between culture and culture clashes and also, you know, colonial, Western colonial invasion physically and you know, ideologically. And then secondly, with Bonzo, and then why the entire family, when they found our church was uncommit to Christianity, just completely renounced them. It's also no coincidence. When Francis Xavier was preaching Catholicism in the Far East, the first landing dog for him was Nagasaki. In the suburb of Nagasaki, there's an island called Goto Island, which is called the Island of God, and that's the landing dog of Francis Xavier. So Nagasaki became the like, you know, the genesis, the roots of all like a Catholicism in Asia. So this kind of so I this is like when I was doing all the research, I realized a lot of the things poignant, like, you know, deeply, deeply poignant and pointed issues between culture, between gender, between religion, has always been in the original DNA of the piece when all this incident occurred. And Puccini actually consulted, worked very closely with the wife of a Japanese ambassador to Italy who knew one of the real Chosen, like, you know, the butterfly, who was documented by American, like her entire incident was documented by American missionary's wife and has a clear transcript. So what I did during my field trip is I hired a Japanese translator. We actually tracked down every geographical place that was mentioned in that manuscript. So we track every spot where the real Chosom, like you know, pink prison story happens. And this is like the interesting, this is when I realized the issue is Turand has the same thing. Butterfly Turandot, similar issue. So the original Asian like sources, Asian female, like a original story, the real when they are real people. Real Chosom never committed suicide, they never had a child, they was never American wife. Similarly to Turandot, the real Turandot is a warrior, 13th century Mongolian warrior, who is like can lead the war holding the fortress when her father was out fighting. But the moment when you what I call, when you have European white male interpreter intervene in the storytelling, that's when other tropes are started added in suicide. So you either become a butterfly, who is a meek meek woman with like with no agency, or you become a dragon lady, like Turandot. So, and that's where where I see the issue is with the piece. And so I realize by setting like this, so when I said it's like I'm really, really trying very hard to make to see Cho Cha Song as a real person, not a fantasy. So, like, you know, Act 1 is 1946, and Act Two, the original offer is three years apart, and our story is like six, it's actually six and a half years apart. Setting that in January 1953. Why specifically that is that's around the time American military withdrawal because they were about to, they were they were about to start the Korean War. So by doing that, in that specific historical backdrop, Japan, everything in Japan is returned returned to normal. Nobody feels this kind of a sizzling need to play the Japanese to please the American. And in my production, you'll see very clear contrast and distinction between how people treat American, Japanese characters treated American in Act One and Act Two, like second half, except Cho Cho-song, who is still holding on to this idea, trying so hard to be the perfect American wife she has in mind. And that's essentially really highlighted her tragedy. Then in Act Three, you know, um when Kay Pinkerton shows up, and that's really like the shattering, and I always I talk to like all of my Cho Cho-song, we all agree. In the back of her mind, she knows what's going on, but she's in denial. And that's why it's so resonating to all of us as immigrant, like you know, immigrant women working abroad. Because essentially it's uh it's her faith in trusting that trusting this is like this relationship is a ticket to a better life, trusting that she can reinvent herself and lead a better life. And you can't really blame someone who be for believing a dream that was never uh like promised to be delivered. And this faith, this determination is her strength and also her wrongdoing to me. And then that in this sense is sort of how I frame the story. Because I I feel like so much of the my understanding of Cho Cho Song also has a lot to do with me living in the United States for 20 years. Because, you know, all of us, and I for my design team, this kind, it's all we are they are all first-generation Japanese design, women designers working in the states like me for over 20 years. And we all said, you know, there are there were a moment. When we first came to the West, we also always like trying so hard to assimilate this this like it's almost like obsessive need, wanting to be seen, to be heard, to be recognized, and to be loved by what I would call the mainstream, essentially it's a mainstream whiteness. And later we all had a realization, realizing that no matter how hard we try, we can't ever be American enough for you. And they will essentially never see us or love us back as who we are. As an immigrant, like that's probably the most shattering lesson you have actually, you know, reckoned with. But the difference is for our generation, women, the Asian women, we have the agency, we have the language, and we have the community to support us going through that. But I imagine during that time, it hasn't like there's no way you can do that. And also historically, during that time period, 45,000 Japanese women married American GIs and they became the warbrights. So when you put all that number in, you one just couldn't help but wonder if 45,000 Japanese women were married into America, based like reindance by both sides. How many women and children were actually left behind during those like, you know, six or seven years? And we never had a official number about that. So that's essentially how I start to justify the butterfly story and make it in my own.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a really interesting and I think all uh I think a very personal take on this. Now I would normally ask, having heard you talk about a a take that's so intensely personal and speaks to your own story so much, I would normally ask what you hope an audience takes away. But as I was think as I was listening to you, I was wondering, is that different if we're talking about a white European settler person in Canada seeing this opera and someone who has been othered, an immigrant person, a person of color, an indigenous person. Do you do you hope different things for those audiences are the same?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the way I do it is like, you know, I plant my understanding in the show and they're in seeds in the moment of the show. And I cannot control how the audience interpret that. So my hope, you know, for any any audience coming to see my butterfly, I just want people to see her not as a myth, not as an exotic figure, but as a real human being. And then also I think, you know, I always say, you know, there are two schools of viewing Madame Butterfly. Is it a love story? Is it not a love story? To me, it's not a love story. There are definitely are infatuations, but when you claim that as a romance, romantic love story, you oversimplified simplified and glossed over a lot of issues in this, like, you know, this relationship that comes from such unbalanced power and dynamics. So that's why I want to be able to see, as I said earlier, butterfly to me is a story about faith, her facing love in transformation and reinventing herself. And essentially it's this faith, it's her resilience and her do, like, you know, her curse. And um, and I used to like when I first started thinking of doing this butterfly, I thought, oh wow, this is like my story, I'm gonna do it right. And this now, this is my fifth time really interpreting this like the same concept. I started to think, you know, there's no right or wrong, but it's actually I think this production opening space for thinking, empathy, and reflection. I'm not saying my treatment for the story is absolutely perfect, but I would say we try, we me and my team tried very, very hard to make this piece, you know, personal, real, and resonating with the world we are in right now. But I think this production hope to open space for empathy and dialogue. And then, you know, it just um it become unexpectedly very right relevant and timely with this plant, the world we are in right now. So, yeah, that's how I see it.

SPEAKER_01:

I would like to hope that a lot of our artwork, a lot of our opera is a space that is open and welcomes empathy and encourages dialogue. So I think that's a really good place to move on for those of us listening. This Mo's production of Madama Butterfly plays at Calgary Opera from November 1st to November 7th. You can get more information and tickets at CalgaryOpera.com. Before we end, though, I wanted to ask you what's next for you. You said you're booked a year and a half in advance. So what do you have coming up that you that you're able to share?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I am actually running Opera Grand Rapids Opera as a guest artistic director this season. So it's an opera company in Michigan. So um this Modern Butterfly is a co-production with um Arizona Opera, Grand Rapids, and Calgary. Calgary's the first stop. So coming next, um, this production will be transferred to Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, next January. And meanwhile, I'll be doing um a very preparing for very, again, very poignant contemporary piece called Stuck Elevator with Opera Grand Rapids. It's a chamber opera by Byron O'Yong, uh, based on a real event about undocumented Chinese food delivery guy got stuck in an elevator for 81 hours uh in the Bronx in New York City. And that is like very similar to Butterfly. It talks about the personal cost, the human cost you pay for believing a dream that will like you know reinvent you, and then eventually realizing that this is a dream that was never supposed to like it to come true.

SPEAKER_01:

That sounds really, really exciting. Um, and interestingly, because I was thinking about the opera house in in Phoenix, which is the the very, very large house, which is but but the house at Opera Calgary is quite similar, I would think. So the the opera would probably transfer very easily, this production will probably transfer easily. This is your fifth time doing butterfly. Is this one special for you in any way?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I feel like every time I do butterfly, I learn something new. And even though this is the fifth time doing this concept, but this is actually the very first time we get to have a brand new set and costume design just tailored for this concept. And uh, because in the past I always have to use some other companies' rental set and you know, like a mix like costume package. It works, but it's always feel like um borrowed land. So this time I'm really grateful Calgary, Arizona, Grand Rapids supported this vision. So I I was able to assemble an all first generation Japanese design team. So the set is being built in, is it's already built. Um so and then all the prop and kimonos are actually shipped from Japan. What is very, very special is you know, my costume designer Mariko, her maternal grandmother survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb. And then I rarely openly talk about it, but my paternal grandmother survived the rape of Nankim in 1937. So in a way, this butterfly become for first generation Asian immigrant women a collective reckoning of the shadow or you know, generational shadows of the Pacific War in World War II, as well as tackling the stereotypical, like, you know, tropes we're dealing with as Asian women creators in this art form. Um I'm very excited. It'll be very personal and very special. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I'm pleased that you get to do one now, after five, with with sets, with costumes that have been designed around your concept. Yeah. I like to end the podcast with something with some really rapid fire questions waiting for. So go for it. I call it the speed round. Just the first thing that comes into your mind. Um, coffee or tea? Coffee. Coffee. A lot of coffee.

SPEAKER_00:

Black coffee. But I didn't drink coffee this morning because people told me I talk too fast. When I'm caffeinated, I talk too fast. I'm too intense. So I deliberately decaffeinated myself for you this morning.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. What what books or TV or movies are you really obsessed with at the moment?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh right now I'm researching um a specific part page of history in Belgium because I'm preparing for a summer project. So books and TV is always related to my next like production. So sorry, workaholic.

SPEAKER_01:

And what then what do you do to relax if you're a workaholic?

SPEAKER_00:

I have a I have a 12-pound chihuahua that travels with me. So uh when I when I yeah, so when I see my dog, that just really forced me to drop everything and gave her my full attention. So my relaxation is yoga and my dog, my chihuahua. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I I wish you toy toy toy for the opening uh on November 1st. I would would love to see this production, and I look forward to receiving the reviews at Opera Canada. Once again, I'm Michael Jones for the Opera Glasses Podcast. I've been speaking with Mojo, who is currently in Calgary directing a brand new production of Madame a Butterfly. I would like to remind all of our listeners, by way of an advertisement, that all 65 plus years of OperaCan. Canada magazine are now available to be seen on Patreon on our Patreon site. I would like to thank our newest Patreon members, Arianne Girard and Tricia Black. But please visit us at patreon.com/slash OperaCanada. We have 65 years, the really true history of this art form in this country, and it's an incredible documentation that I urge you to go to. Once again, I'm really, really grateful for Mo to Mo for joining us today. It has been a real pleasure to meet you and to hear about your approach to this work. Thank you again, Michael. This is fun. And once again, this is Michael Jones for the Opera Glasses Podcast. Please join us again next month when I believe that our guest will be the grand prize winner at the upcoming center stage competition for the Canadian Opera Company. Thank you so much for joining us.