ABSTRACT
Atlas's com m ent is tha t "while we may sense a feeling of remorse on Pinkerton's part, it is to no avail. The m eaning tha t G!> now has for h im rem ains the same, as once again he uses that key to reject Butterfly. Thus at both the begin ning and the end of the opera Gl? functions as Pinkerton's 'negative' tonal area." One sees how, by assum ing the initia l "sem antic associ ation, " subsequent identifications are licensed to depart further from the text. As is clear from the above libretto quotation, P inkerton's con tribution to the trio is an expression of remorse for his past actions: nowhere does he m ention his "rejection" of Butterfly. Of course, his re morse results from his having forgotten But terfly, married another. But tha t was in the past: it happened offstage, between acts I and II; it was not underpinned by G k
It looks very m uch as though, given the rules of evidence Atlas applies, any statem ent of Pinkerton's could concern his "rejection and renunciation" of Butterfly: after all, everything that Pinkerton does in the opera either leads up to tha t fateful act (in the interm ission), or is in reaction to it. To single out these two passages is, I would argue, based prim arily on a desire to construct an abstract theory, to impose a tidy sym m etry on Puccini's opera; they find no more basis in the text of the opera than any thing else Pinkerton says, and in fact consider ably less than several of his other statem ents.
