AtDTDA 20 Butterfly 566/567

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          "There's a new Puccini opera," she said. "An American betrays 
          a Japanese woman. Butterfly. He ought to die of shame, but 
          does not---Butterfly does. What are we to make of this?" 567

First of all, there really is a new Puccini opera:

             Madame Butterfly originated in a story by John Luther Long 
          and was adapted for the stage by David Belasco. The play 
          premiered with great success in New York in 1900, then quickly 
          crossed the Atlantic for a London production where it was seen 
          by Giacomo Puccini. Puccini's first version of the opera failed 
          at La Scala in 1904, but a revised version was successful the 
          same year, the version that we hear today, one of the most 
          frequently produced operas in the entire repertory. 

              Butterfly is different from many operas. It is intimate, devoid of 
          spectacle, taking place completely within a house in  Nagasaki. 
          There is one straight plot line, without subplots. Girl wins boy, girl 
          loses boy, girl commits hara kiri. What makes the piece work are 
          the characterizations of Butterfly and her Captain Pinkerton, both 
          in the drama and in the rich and luscious Puccini score. 

              From when we first meet Pinkerton, a dashing officer in the 
          United States Navy, it is clear that the man is a philandering heel, 
          infatuated with the fifteen year old Butterfly, cognizant of her 
          fragility, but "not content with life unless he makes his treasure 
          the flowers on every shore." He says as he compares her to a 
          butterfly, "I must pursue her even though I damage her wings." 

              The stage for the tragedy is set. We meet the beauteous Cio-Cio 
          San,  not a complete innocent - she has been a geisha, after all - 
          but nonetheless fragile, unworldly, and in love with the handsome 
          sailor. She deceives herself, despite abundant warnings, as to 
          Pinkerton's motives. [1]

              The tale unfolds with well written dialogue, sung to music which 
          captures the feelings of love and yearning and pain, raising the 
          entire experience into the realm of great art, transcendently moving.  
          This simple plot provides the vehicle for the arias of love and loss 
          and hope and despair, the stuff of which the very best operatic 
          music is made. . . .
          Arthur Lazere

http://www.culturevulture.net/Opera/Butterfly.htm

Second, Kit decides not to keep the Q-Weapon, passing it on to Umeki.
He had 'one of those mathmaticians'  dreams that surface now and then 
in the folklore,' and knew the weapon would destroy whoever would use 
it. Thus Kit's betrayal of Umeki. Some would call upon Pynchon's sense
of justice, but I see it more as karma, and of karmically linked fates.

          "Countless rebirths lie ahead, both good and bad. The effects of 
          karma (actions) are inevitable, and in previous lifetimes we have 
          accumulated negative karma which will inevitably have its fruition 
          in this or future lives. Just as someone witnessed by police in a 
          criminal act will eventually be caught and punished, so we too must 
          face the consequences of faulty actions we have committed in the 
          past, there is no way to be at ease; those actions are irreversible; 
          we must eventually undergo their effects."

          His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from 'Kindness, Clarity and Insight'

http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/karma.html

1. This is another example of a reference in Pynchon bifurcating into
cross reference. Here, of course, it's the Pinkertons and the establishment 
of yet another spy or private eye organization in the 'land of the free.'