NEW YORK, March 21, (Agencies): Having disappeared from Lincoln Center for a season, New York City Opera is taking tiny steps toward recovery.
Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” returned Friday night in a revival of the pretty minimalist production by Mark Lamos that was first seen in November 1998. Joined by revivals of Chabrier’s “L’Etoile,” which opened Thursday, and Handel’s “Partenope,” which begins April 3, it completes the company’s modest five-opera comeback season.
Next season will be just as limited, with another quintet of stagings. That’s down from 13 productions, including six new ones, during the 2007-08 season. Bouncing back from the closing of its home for reconstruction and the hiring and abrupt departure of Gerard Mortier before he began his scheduled term as general manager will take a long time.
Lamos’ “Butterfly” has proven to be popular. With large sliding shoji screens at the front and rear of the stage, eight steps that stretch across the set and pretty colors of sky blue, sunset red, aqua and pink, Michael Yeargan’s sets and Robert Wierzel’s lighting create an abstract hilltop house for Cio-Cio-San above Nagasaki harbor, one that allows breezy movement.
Reprising a role she sang when this production was telecast two years ago, soprano Shu-Ying Li was endearing as the 15-year-old geisha, although her voice had a steely edge to it.

Pushed
Tenor Steven Harrison’s voice came in and out of focus as Lt Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, depending on where he was on the set and which direction his head was turned, and there was a phlegmy quality to it when pushed.
Baritone Quinn Kelsey, making his company debut, did the best singing of the evening as Sharpless, the US counsel, who tries to caution the officer against his callous behavior. He was the moral and vocal center of the performance.
Mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen, also making her debut, spent the night slightly hunched over as Suzuki, conveying her heartbreak with her voice. Eddie Schweighardt had a winning smile and energetic boyish charm as Sorrow, the young child of Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton.
David Grabarkewitz, the stage director, blocked effectively throughout, culminating in a shattering final scene with Cio-Cio-San and Sorrow. Conductor Steven Mosteller settled down after some early coordination problems with the brass.
There are nine more performances through April 18.

In the opera world, all eyes will be on Austrian capital on Monday when Mexican star tenor Rolando Villazon makes his stage comeback at the Vienna State Opera.
Villazon, 37, who has now had to put his career on ice twice due to problems with his vocal chords, will sing the role of Nemorino in a one-off performance of Donzetti’s best-loved comic opera, “L’elisir d’amore”.
He is then due to sing the role of Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in Berlin later this month.
The bubbly singer with his trademark mop of black hair cancelled all his engagements last year after a cyst was found on his vocal chords.
Villazon, who shot to super-stardom alongside Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Salzburg in 2005, had already been forced to take an extended break from the concert platform and opera stage in 2007.
At the time, he blamed the self-enforced sabbatical on burnout rather than physical or vocal issues. The explanation was certainly not hard to believe: with his unruly hair, his perennial grin and seemingly indefatigable good mood, Villazon has sometimes been seen as some sort of operatic clown.
His unquenchable thirst to venture into ever new territory — his repertoire, on disc at least, ranges from Monteverdi to even small Wagner roles — and the turbo-charged intensity and commitment of all of his performances led many critics to warn that he could be overstretching himself. So when he announced last April that he would undergo surgery to remove a cyst from his vocal chords, some observers suggested his career might be over for good.
Important
In a video message on his website in November, however, he announced that his voice “is back”.
“I wanted to make some important decisions about my career, about repertoire and about some productions,” Villazon said.
“And this is only due to the fact that I want to come back in the best situation possible. I am very, very excited,” he said and signed off by singing “Ciao” on a top A.
According to a spokesman for the Vienna State Opera on Thursday, Villazon has been in good form at the rehearsals this week.
“He is here. He is rehearsing and everything looks as if things will run smoothly on Monday,” the spokesman told AFP.
Villazon’s record company, Deutsche Grammophon, released a brand new album entitled — rather unimaginatively — “Tenor” last month, in time for his comeback dates.
The CD is a collection of some of the best known tenor arias, ranging from Handel, to Verdi and Puccini, to Leonard Bernstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
After his performances in Vienna and Berlin, he will give Handel recitals in Hamburg, London, Paris and Munich; recitals with French pianist Helene Grimaux in Paris, Verbier and Salzburg; a performance of Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Zurich; and another performance of “L’elisir d’amore” in Munich.
For many in the classical music world, Villazon put his credibility on the line by appearing as juror in a classical talent show on British TV, entitled “Popstar to Operastar”, with some critics accusing him of losing all sense of dignity, even if he saw it as a way of breaking down barriers in opera.
But he may be able to regain some of that credibility when he tries his hand at stage direction for the first time in 2011, with a production of Massenet’s “Werther” at the Opera de Lyon.
Werther is perhaps one of his most famous roles as a singer.
Villazon’s single performance in “L’elisir d’amore” in Vienna on Monday has been sold out for months.