Knoxville Opera Forgets It's 2019 and Opts for Yellowface for "Madame Butterfly"

Thankfully in 2019, awareness of blackface, brownface, and yellowface have been heightened to the level that it’s almost universally understood that donning them is wrong.

Yet some people are showing a more delayed response in understanding that.

Just last week, a teacher in CA was removed from his classroom for donning blackface while trying to dress as the rapper Common.

And now, reports and pictures of an opera production with actors dressed in yellowface, are going viral on social media. The images are from Knoxville Opera’s production of Madame Butterfly, which closed last weekend.

Yikes. So this is a bit problematic in the not-at-all-slanted-like-that eyes of this Korean-American.

The company’s publicity is also revealing. Assuming there would be some issues with the casting, the company’s publicity for the 2019 production were images from their 2010 production when they actually had an Asian woman in the cast.

They also went as far as to use stock footage of an Asian woman in traditional dress for their promotional video. That’s a ballsy advertising move.

So there’s a lot to unpack here. Besides the fact that Madame Butterfly is already a problematic piece(it's an Asian-fetish tale about buying a 15-year-old girl for sex), there is literally no excuse for any type of “face” in any type of theatre production in 2019.

And yes, I would have had an issue with their 2010 production if I had known about it. But you can bet I had an issue when they only wanted to hire “attractive” people for their productions in 2015. Here we go again, Brian Salesky.

Now I’ll be the first to agree that Knoxville isn't known for its vast population of Asian operatic singers. However, Knoxville Opera is a professional company with the ability to hold auditions for Asian talent if they chose to do so, which they didn’t. Is casting a person of color correctly in opera harder than just having actors don yellowface? Yes. And opera/theatre companies need to make every effort to prevent that from happening.

Ever since the controversy of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ 2015 production of The Mikado, the use of yellowface and other “faces” has been a hot button topic in the opera world. While many say the practice should end, many also feel it’s an age-old traditional way of casting those roles. Personally, I’d like to see those “age-old” traditions remain in those ages and not in 2019. It should be noted that after consulting with Asian artists, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players redesigned The Mikado and performed it a year later.

There are some out there who feel that productions like these are a way to learn more about different cultures. My suggestion is to actually speak to a person of color rather than donning make-up to look like them. Thankfully it feels like 90% of theatre professionals understand this. Knoxville Opera could use an education.

This May, the company is planning on performing a Harriet Tubman opera. I would think that by not wanting national outrage, they will cast that show without using blackface. Which makes me wonder why they didn’t give the same respect in their casting of Madame Butterfly.

UPDATE 11/13: After temporarily suspending their social media accounts, Knoxville Opera has posted the following statement:

Knoxville Opera values the comments received regarding its recent production of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. We regret our decisions that offended any person or group, and we are committed to taking these generously provided comments into consideration when casting performers and visually presenting characters. For centuries, art, in all its forms, has served to stimulate thoughtful dialogue about critical issues. Butterfly and hundreds of other theatrical works have been such a catalyst, and we hope that being open to our community will help prevent issues with historical operas in the future.