Seattle Opera's summer opera is a New Zealand Opera physical production of "Madame Butterfly" directed by Kate Cherry. It's a beautiful box set in the middle of the stage, with sliding shoji screens, and the lighting by Matt Scott is splendid.
In the smaller roles, Renee Rapier's Suzuki and Rodell Rosel's Goro were dead on vocally and dramatically. Weston Hurt sang Sharpless with sensitivity and elegance, traits he also showed here as Germont and Nabucco. I finally got to hear Alexey Dolgov, the

Lensky in the last Met in HD "Eugene Onegin," who has a wonderful voice live, too, but, poor guy: according to the Seattle Times, on opening night last Saturday, he had vocal difficulties and only sang Act I, with the tenor from the other cast, Dominick Chenes, stepping in for Act III -- if the smoke from the BC wildfires didn't do it, I'm sure it didn't help if he was ailing -- and he was in great voice tonight, but, Seattle audiences boo the villain, and while there were many candidates in this opera, he got the nomination. In the program, he said that he's been booed every time he's sung Pinkerton in America, and his colleagues reassured him it wasn't about him, but he sounded so great tonight, it would have been nice for him to get some cheers. The chorus was terrific, too, which is SOP or them, and during the humming chorus, they had at least some of the chorus up near the high boxes, and the effect was magical.
The first, second, and third stars of the game go to Lianna Haroutounian, the Cio-Cio-San. She was very close to the stratosphere of my goddess, Stephanie Blythe. Her performance was a knockout. She's the real deal.
Seattle Opera broadcasts the middle Saturday night performance on KING-FM, including via streaming internet. That's this Saturday, August 12 at 7:30pm PDT, 10:30pm EDT
http://www.king.org/
First act is about 50 minutes, followed by a 30-minute intermission, and then Acts II-III running straight through (~90 minutes).
And great news for the community: Seattle Opera is reviving "An American Dream" this September (7, 8, 10m, 14, 15, 17m) at Washington Hall. (seattleopera.org/americandream).