THE BUTTERFLY PROCESS CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
A Suggested Companion to Boston Lyric Opera’s Butterfly Process Discussion Series and Articles
Ideal for adaptation with 11th or 12th Grade English Language Arts Courses or Undergraduate Courses as relevant Purpose
Introduce students to Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly, through the framework and topics in Boston Lyric Opera’s Butterfly Process Discussion Series that critically examines the cultural context, stereotypes, and socio-cultural issues connected to this opera that perpetuate myths and assumptions about Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) culture and peoples.
Goal
Students will critically analyze the story and the music of the opera Madama Butterfly spanning from the premiere of the work through today and understand its enduring influence in shaping and reinforcing stereotypes of AAPI people in Western European and American cultures. Students will explore their own adaptation of the opera, using their knowledge of good storytelling, point of view, character design, musical motifs, symbolism, and archetypes, while avoiding cultural appropriation and stereotyping.
Essential Questions
• Why do we tell stories? What makes a compelling and enduring story?
• How does the storyteller and their point of view influence how the story is told?
• How do musical motifs describe the character’s emotional journey?
• What is cultural appropriation? What are the power structures within cultural appropriation?
• What role do symbols play in storytelling? When do they become stereotypes?
• How do archetypes help us understand characters? How do they perpetuate stereotypes?
• How can we retell stories in new ways that preserve the essence of the story while avoiding cultural appropriation and stereotyping?
Enduring Understandings
• It is important to be aware of who the storyteller is and what point of view they are taking when telling a story. The cultural identity of a storyteller can also impact how the story is told
• It is important to identify who your audience is when you are telling a story.
• When the storyteller imagines people and places that are different from their own culture and experience, they risk appropriating that culture, stereotyping people, and misrepresenting traditions.
• Symbols and archetypes can be helpful when the audience has the same cultural understanding as the storyteller. If the audiences’ cultural understandings are not the same as the storyteller’s, these symbols and archetypes may be misunderstood and hurtful.
• Musical expression is a rich symbolic artistic medium to convey the emotions in a story.
• Telling or re-telling a story for a multi-cultural audience requires critical analysis to effectively convey the characters, the enduring emotional journey, and the key plot points, while not appropriating another’s culture or stereotyping people, which can cause harm.
Resources
• Boston Lyric Opera Butterfly Process Discussion Series Videos
• Boston Lyric Opera Butterfly Process Articles
• Madama Butterfly Opera Video – Italian with English Subtitles
• Madama Butterfly Opera Film by France 3 Cinema – Italian with English Subtitles
• Madama Butterfly Opera film of staged version – Italian with English Supertitles
• Boston Lyric Opera Madama Butterfly Study Guide
• BLO Butterfly Process Additional Resources
Vocabulary
Point of View Describes the person or perspective from which the events, observations, values, and beliefs of the story is being told. Common points of view include first person (I/me), second person (you), and third person (they either omniscient or limited).
Stereotype A widely held, fixed but oversimplified idea, belief, or characteristic of a specific type or category of person, place, or thing.
Dominant Culture Cultural norms, beliefs, values, language, and ways of living that, through economic or political power, are imposed on everyone living in that physical place, including subordinate cultures. The power is often exercised through legal or political actions and control of the media to suppress other sets of values, beliefs, and norms.
Symbol An object, shape, or mark that represents a larger concept, idea, process, or meaning within a specific context and language.
Archetype A recurring symbol that reinforces a particular set of characteristics which come to represent a typical example of that thing/person.
Cultural Appropriation Using symbols, objects, or rituals from a less dominant culture without permission or regard for their context and meaning within that culture, sometimes to profit from
Cultural Appreciation Showing interest and curiosity to learn about another culture with respect, reverence, and deference to the ownership of cultural traditions, objects, and rituals. Seeking permission to create art that is inspired from these learnings but is removed and “remixed” from its original context to the extent that it does not cause harm to those who belong to the original culture. Often this is called “Cultural Fusion” .
Cultural Fusion The combining, mixing, and/or merging of two or more cultures to create a new cultural expression that represents none of the original cultures.
Orientalism The fictional depiction of East Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, peoples, and traditions as exotic, underdeveloped, infantile, and threatening by Western European and American imperialists during colonialism.
Cancel Culture The practice of withdrawing public support for an entire person, organization, or entity, invalidating their entire social worth, and shunning them publicly as the result of something they have done or said that is widely considered objectionable, offensive, or illegal.
Pentatonic Scale A musical scale with five notes per octave developed independently by many ancient cultures and used world-wide in music throughout history and today. To hear one kind of pentatonic scale, one can play only the black keys on a piano.
Musical Motif (Motive) A short musical idea, phrase, or set of notes that reoccurs in a piece and has some special characteristic or importance, often to symbolize or refer to a character, emotion, or other thematic element.
Dynamics The indication of a change in the volume (loudness or softness) within a musical piece.
Tempo The indication of a change of speed (fast or slow) within a musical piece.
Mode A musical scale that evokes a characteristic “mood” or emotion within a composition.
LESSON ONE: The Art of Storytelling
FOCUS QUESTION: How does the point of view of the storyteller and their personal identity frame how a story is told and how does who the audience is frame how the story is received?
What makes a good story?
Brainstorm examples of the elements of a good story: Plot, Setting, Characters, Conflict, Theme, Tone, Conflict, Point of View
Partner Storytelling
Framing: Tell students to think of a story that really happened to them. Remind students to choose a story they feel comfortable working with and telling multiple times. Think about including details, referring to the story elements brainstorm. Emphasis on the storyteller being the main character.
Note: Discuss with students self-care practices in choosing a story that they feel safe working with in class. This is a difficult activity to do for some without scaffolding and processing time for what story to choose to share if you don’t know how the exercise will play out and what is at risk. Suggested scaffolding below.
• Round 1: Example: Everyone tries the exercise or one group demos with “The story of my morning.” Include actions, emotions, characters, and settings. Debrief to cement ideas of using “good story” elements and strategies for active listening and retelling
• Round 2: a more vulnerable prompt (the 3 choices listed below)
o Each student chooses one of these prompts:
▪ What was the scariest thing that happened to you in the last month? What happened and what did you do?
▪ Tell about a time when you saw someone who needed help. How did you help and was the situation solved? How did it make you feel?
▪ Describe your happiest childhood memory. What happened? Who was there?
o Partner up and tell a short personal real story to your partner. The partner only listens.
o Let the listener retell the story back to the original storyteller. (Switch)
• Have a few pairs share to the class, with each person telling the other’s story.
• Class Debrief:
o How did it feel to have someone tell your story?
o Did the storyteller miss any details?
o Did they retell all of the original information correctly?
o How did you feel telling someone else's story?
o What made your partner’s story a good story to listen to?
o Did you want to change any details to make it a more exciting story?
Point of View
• Have each student identify in their story:
o Whose point of view was the story being told from? Was the story in first person or third person? How did the point of view of the storyteller influence what was included in the story? How would it be different if another character in the story told the same story from their perspective?
o What historical context relates to your story? In what way? Is it direct or indirect?
o Are you part of the dominant culture in the context of your story? Was your story a family story you are recounting? Perhaps something that happened when you were a small child? How does your retelling of your story change as you grow older?
Comparative Storytelling
• Go back to your partner and tell the same story again, but now the listener takes notes. Storyteller can add more detail. Notetaker (re-teller) pays close attention. The re-teller then tells the story back to the storyteller again, using their notes.
• Class Debrief:
o How did it feel to tell the story for the second time and with detail?
o What did the storyteller emphasize? What did they de-emphasize?
o Did the listener/note taker get all the details right?
o What did the re-teller emphasize? What did they de-emphasize?
o Did the original Storyteller change anything from the first time they told the story? Why did they make that choice?
Class Discussion: What makes a person want to retell a story again and again? What makes a story compelling? What compels someone to hear/see a story over and over again?
Homework: Introduction to Madama Butterfly: Watch the opera. Identify who the storyteller is and their point of view. Where does the story take place? What language is it in? Who are the main characters? What time period does it take place?
LESSON TWO: The Madama Butterfly Story
FOCUS QUESTION: How does the opera Madama Butterfly – the story and the music and its origins frame how audiences make meaning of it?
Supporting Materials
Opera Synopsis
Butterfly Process Discussion #1: The Birth of Butterfly through WWII: The First 50 Years Article: Contextualizing Butterfly
1. Character Analysis: Review the synopsis of the opera with the class. Identify the main characters. Split the class into groups with each group assigned a character and answer these questions:
• Who am I? This question's answer includes all relevant details from name and age to physical traits, education, and beliefs.
• What time/year/day is it?
• Where am I? What surrounds me?
• What are my given circumstances (the things that are out of my control)?
• Who are my relationships?
• What do I want?
• What is in my way to getting what I want?
2. Multiple Stories Class Discussion: After viewing Discussion #1 Video and Contextualizing Butterfly Article.
• Discuss the historical context behind the opera including its origins: as a short story by John Luther Long, the French novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti, and the one act play Madama Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan by David Belasco before being adapted into an opera by Puccini.
o Identify who the storyteller is and their point of view.
o What knowledge, experience, exposure did they have to the culture where they set the story? How did that influence how they told the story?
o Identify the similarities and differences between each story version.
• Review: After viewing Discussion #1 Video and Contextualizing Butterfly Article.
o Where was Puccini from and what were his life experiences that related to the opera’s creation?
o What was the larger cultural relationship between the East and West at the time of the premiere?
o In what ways did Puccini edit the opera during his lifetime? How did that change the meaning of the story?
3. Storytelling through Music: Listen to selections from Madama Butterfly and have students reflect either through writing, class discussion, or both.
• Overture of Madama Butterfly Listen as a class to the musical introduction to the story. Have students identify the attributes of the music, and what emotions they evoke. Think about: Dynamics (loud-soft), Tempo (speed), Mode (sad-happy) etc.
o How does the music of Puccini tell the story?
o In what moments does he choose to heighten the drama?
o What are the musical motives he uses to identify a certain character?
• “Dovunque al mondo” (“Everywhere in the world”) Listen to tenor Pinkerton’s Act I aria
o When do you hear “The Star-Spangled Banner" quoted?
o Does this recognizable melody come as a surprise, or does it feel pretty natural in this score?
o Why do you think Puccini added this to Pinkerton’s music?
o How does it make you feel about the character?
• Pentatonic Scale Listen to a pentatonic scale. Some Japanese folk songs were written using these five-tone scales. Now, listen to this Japanese folk song “Sakura” (“Cherry Blossoms”)
o Do you hear the pentatonic scale?
o How do these instances sound the same or different from the music you are used to hearing?
• "C'è. Entrate" (“There is. Enter”) Now listen to this selection from Act II.
o Can you hear the pentatonic scale in this piece?
o Why does Puccini use the pentatonic scale in his opera?
o What does the use of it tell you about the characters?
• “Humming Chorus” from Act II. The ensemble performing this chorus most often sings (or hums!) from backstage, unseen by the audience. In this scene, Cio-Cio-San silently awaits the return of her husband, Pinkerton. She is joined by her son and her companion, Suzuki.
o How does this music make you feel?
o What do you think this chorus says about how Cio-Cio-San is feeling?
o If Puccini didn’t want to use words in this piece, why do you think he chose to have voices perform it, instead of just writing it for instruments?
Debrief: What elements of the music are representative of Puccini’s point of view and culture? What elements of the music are missing or misrepresent the cultures in the story?
Dive Deeper: Research and listen to other Puccini operas including Turandot, La Fanciulla del West, and La Bohème. Research and listen to traditional Japanese folk music of the early 1900s or before. Research and listen to American folk music of the early 1900s or before. Compare and contrast Puccini’s representation of Japanese culture and American culture through the lens of his own Italian culture.
Class Discussion: Is it ok to borrow from or use elements of another’s culture in your own music-making? What are some contemporary examples?
LESSON THREE: Cultural Appropriation
FOCUS QUESTION: What are the differences and similarities between cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation, fusion, Orientalism, cancel culture, and fantasy?
Supporting Materials
Butterfly Process Discussion #2: Orientalism and Cultural Appropriation
Article: Diving Deeper: A Discussion About Orientalism
Review Definition of Terms: Cultural Appropriation, Cultural Appreciation, Cultural Fusion, Stereotype, Orientalism, Cancel Culture
What is Cultural Appropriation? Brainstorm as a class:
• What are examples of cultural appropriation in pop culture?
• What are examples of appropriation from your cultural heritage by another culture?
• How do you know it is cultural appropriation?
Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Appreciation Class discussion:
• What are the power dynamics inherent in cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation?
• When is it costume and when is it culture?
• How does stereotyping factor into cultural appropriation?
• How can you be inspired by another cultural work and make art that isn’t cultural appropriation?
• When is something called “fusion,” what is fused?
• What is the distinction between a cultural work having authenticity vs. integrity?
Cultural Fantasy Brainstorm as a class:
• What are some examples of Orientalism?
• What are examples in Western European and/or American culture that another culture was turned into an exotic fantasy? (e.g. the character of Tigerlily in Peter Pan) How are they depicted?
• Is cultural fantasy always cultural appropriation? Are there examples of it being cultural appreciation?
• What are some examples of people in a dominant culture making fun of themselves? When is this ok? When is it not?
Cancel Culture Ask students to bring an example of a cultural work that they like, but for which the creator has been “canceled.” Alternatively, the teacher can choose one to two examples that students are familiar with that the class can analyze together. Option to examine an artwork that is based in performing arts practice (music, play, dance, musical etc.) to be able to compare and contrast to the opera, Madama Butterfly.
• In small groups: Discuss why each one was “canceled” and whether the other students agree with this attitude. Discuss whether the work/item has caused harm to another group/race/culture. Discuss each student’s opinion on the distinction between separating the art from the artist
Writing Reflection: What cultural appropriation exists in Madama Butterfly? How is Madama Butterfly an example of Orientalism? Should Madama Butterfly or Puccini be “canceled”? Why or why not?
LESSON FOUR: Archetypes & Symbolism
FOCUS QUESTION: How are archetypes and symbols used to tell stories and in what ways are they helpful and unhelpful in telling a good story?
Supporting Materials:
Butterfly Process Discussion #3: Symbolism & Archetypes of Women
Article: The Geisha in the Mirror: The Impact of Symbols and Archetypes
Article: Voicing the Quietness: Madama Butterfly and the Perception of East Asian Women
Review Definition of Terms: Symbol, Archetype, Stereotype.
Introduction to Archetypes
Archetypes are used in many, if not all, cultures in storytelling Within a certain culture they become a “shorthand” for who that character is, because everyone in that culture is familiar with the traits of the archetype, and have a shared understanding of the role that character plays in stories. There are many different cultural traditions of archetypes. Educators can use a system that works in their classroom. Here are a few:
• Psychologist Carl Jung’s 12 Archetypes
• commedia dell’arte Stock Characters
• Stock Characters in Peking Opera
• Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey Archetypes
Exploration of Archetypes
• Instruct students to choose three archetypes that best describe them from one archetypal system. Then write four adjectives under each main archetype to describe how they exhibit that archetypal trait. Option to have students then act out or pose in their archetypes without words, charades style and have the class guess what they are portraying.
Class Debrief:
o How do Archetypes help us to tell, share, and understand stories? What are the benefits and drawbacks of using them?
o Do archetypes correlate with gender expression? In what ways?
o How are Archetypes related to stereotypes?
Archetypes in Madama Butterfly
• Divide students into groups and assign each a character from Madama Butterfly. Each group decides what Archetype(s) fit with their character and why. Each group presents their character to the class Recall and revisit, if needed, the music in the opera that Puccini associated with the character (Lesson Two) as students analyze and justify their decisions.
Class Debrief:
o How do archetypes help us to better understand each character?
o How do archetypes flatten or make us assume things about the character? How might it be helpful? How might it be unhelpful?
o What are the benefits of archetypes for storytelling? What are the drawbacks?
o How are archetypes and symbols similar or different to musical motifs?
o How might the use of symbols in the music, words, staging, set design, costumes, make-up, etc. enhance, clarify, confuse, or detract from the storytelling of Madama Butterfly?
o In what ways might the symbols and archetypes create or perpetuate stereotyping of people, places, or cultures?
FINAL PROJECT: Critically Responsive Storytelling
FOCUS QUESTION: How can we tell the opera-story of Madama Butterfly with the existing music for today’s multicultural American audiences?
Madama Butterfly Story Adaptation
Adapt the opera, Madama Butterfly as a class to make it contemporary and relevant to today.
• Decide from what point of view this version will be told.
• Agree on “givens” including that it takes place today, in your city or town.
• In groups, students work on a character and brainstorm three ideas as to who they are in this story. Use the original characters as a jumping off point thinking about their archetypes Choose a contemporary musical motif or “moment” (a part of a song or piece of music, not a whole song) that describes their character.
• Student groups present their new characters to the class.
• The class then adapts details and symbols in the story to align with the new characters and decides on an appropriate ending.
Student Final Paper or Presentation
• Identify possible challenges with the newly adapted outline and characters that the class just created. These may include:
o Point of View
o Music appropriation
o Archetypes misunderstood as stereotypes
o Cultural Appropriation
• Answer the questions: Who is the audience for this story? Why are we retelling this story in this way today? Is it compelling?