Standing ovations in San Diego are as ubiquitous as the scraggy palm trees that line its streets. A typical San Diego “standing ovation” starts when a few excitable people jump up at the end of a performance, gradually followed by a smattering of folks in various parts of the hall. Then the persons seated behind the standees get up to see what is happening on stage—while those seated along aisles scurry out of the hall to be first out of the parking garage.

When soprano Patricia Racette stood alone on the Civic Theatre stage at the conclusion of San Diego Opera’s “Madama Butterfly” Saturday (May 9), she did not receive a San Diego-style standing ovation. Rather, the entire theater instantly rose in unison, cheering her with an ardor rarely experienced in this hall—or any other—in response to her searing emotional account of the title role in Giacamo Puccini’s rightly adored verismo opera.

One of the most sought-after genuine Puccini sopranos of our time, Racette’s marvellous instrument gleams evenly throughout the range, strong without a hint of stridency, flexible and under complete control—a gorgeous spinto voice with the inner strength of a dramatic soprano. But Racette never settles for a pretty vocalise. Rather, she finds the emotional center of each phrase, allowing all of her movements and vocal inflections to reinforce that truth.

Racette dominated this production of the familiar tragedy of a young Japanese geisha “married” by a cavalier American sailor, B.F. Pinkerton, who quickly leaves her in Nagasaki to find an authentic American bride in the U.S. From the outset, Racette brought out the tragic foreboding that colors both the outwardly joyous wedding scene and the ensuing love scene. Her second-act protests that Pinkerton will return to her and the son he sired communicate desperation rather than confidence and only make ther eventual confrontation of the truth more devastating.

These days Puccini tenors are even rarer than Puccini sopranos, and the Uruguayan tenor Carlo Ventre proved a strong vocal match to Racette. He boasts ample vocal strength and a slightly dark but well-modulated timbre throughout his range. However, his monochromatic acting paled in comparison to hers.

I missed the subtle swagger, that entitled Yankee bravado that American tenor Richard Leech brings to this role, a component that Puccini wrote into the orchestral score repeatedly. All of those quick-flash allusions to the opening phrase of the “Star-Spangled Banner” bloom in such clotted harmonies not as a handy leit-motif that says, “Oh, here’s that American fellow again,” but instead sarcastically insinuates, “Watch out—this callow sailor has no moral compass.”

So Ventre’s remorse at the opera’s close seemed hollow, because he never really owned Pinkerton’s cavalier calculations at the outset. And as a lover, he seemed to be taking his instructions from Butterfly, which is not the brash Pinkerton of either Puccini’`s opera or the David Belasco play on which it is based.

Fortunately, Racette was in excellent vocal and dramatic company with mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzmán as her maid Suzuki and baritone Malcolm MacKenzie as the American Consul Sharpless. Equal to the warmth and tireless lyrical persuasion of MacKenzie's voice was the depth of his characterization, a palpable empathy for Butterfly that never touched on condescension or pity. MacKenzie was a fine Marullo in last month’s San Diego Opera production of “Rigoletto,” and this role gave him greater opportunity to develop a character with keen insight. Let’s hope that General Director Ian Campbell has signed him up for lots of return appearances in upcoming seasons.

Guzmán, who was a winning Maddelena in several previous San Diego “Rigoletto” productions, gave Suzuki a feisty edge that still did not compromise her loyalty to Butterfly. Her second-act duet with Racette was postiively rapturous.

Joseph Hu, a Taiwanese tenor making his third San Diego Opera appearance this season, outdid himself as the marriage broker Goro. Cavorting about the stage with grand but obsequious formality, Hu artfully combined the seediest aspects of salemanship and diplomacy, delivered with vocal confidence and clarity. As Prince Yamadori, the playboy Goro tries to foist on Butterfly after Pinkerton leaves Nagasaki, baritone Jason Detwiler crafted an unusually sympathetic portrait.

Bass Scott Sikon was a stentorian Bonze, Butterfly’s Buddhist priest uncle who—at least in Michael Yeargan’s abstract set—is required to denounce Butterfly (for her covert conversion to Christianity) from the back of the stage standing in the center of a giant Buddha statue.

This brings us to Yeargan’s controversial 1997 set, commissioned by San Diego Opera and three other companies, that significantly re-imagines the opera’s setting. Instead of taking place in and outside of the charming house that Pinkerton rents for his Japanese bride, Yeargan places most of the action in the office and drab waiting room of the American Counsul. Those few scenes that cannot fit into this concept, e.g. the nuptial bed scene, are staged on a bare stage save a few transparent, narrow screens that unfold from above.

The advantages of this concept are several, including freeing the audience from the opera’s now-Kitsch japonaiserie disctractions, the sliding rice-paper screens, the cherry blossoms, the lanterns, etc., and focuses all concerntration on the music and drama. Putting some of the action in the consular office underscores the subservience of Butterfly to her American husband and culture, although in the second scene it means that poor Suzuki is reciting her prayers on the floor of the waiting room and making hot tea there for the Consul, rather unlikely situations.

Also in Yeargan's abstraction, we lose some important symbols, such as the scene near the end where Butterfly exchanges her Christian symbols for the traditional Japanese icons of dieties she fatefully renounced earlier in the opera.

But Yeargan does give us two striking coups-de-théatre: the flower duet in which thousands of red and pink paper blossoms rain down on Butterfly and Suzuki across the wide expanse of the stage and the deep red silk Kabuki cloth that drops down when Butterfly commits ritual suicide. Alan Burrett’s lighting is quite magical in its special effects, such as the the transitions from night to day, but too frequently an important singer was left in the dark, especially where they were placed more deeply on the set.

Anita Yavich’s costumes were hit and miss. The long, white, Edwardian skirts for the women of the consular staff and the American Consul’s spiffy white suit were striking, and the Goro’s incongruous tophat was an appropriately humorous touch. But the design of Butterfly’s white kimono was particularly unflattering to Racette, and combined with her stark make-up made this attractive, youthful singer appear matronly.

Stage Director Garnett Bruce faced unusual challenges with the Yeargan set in its abstract mode, and at times the singers’ movemments seemed arbitrary. In the consular office scenes, he favored much busy activity for decorative characters such as secretaries and messengers, a mild distraction.

Conductor Edoardo Mueller, always in top form in the Romantic Italian repertory, brought new insights to a score that never wears out its welcome in able hands, and the orchestra responded with their most cohesive and generous playing of this season.

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