Madama Butterfly

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Image courtesy of the Liceu.

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is among the most acclaimed and frequently performed operas around the world. Not many operas move the audience like this early 20th century masterpiece (1904). Based on the theatrical drama by David Belasco, its marvelous orchestration and melodic inspiration, truthful and at the same time exotic and highly passionate, is one of the most tragic and at the same time penetrating and emotional stories of all time.

By adapting David Belasco's Madame Butterfly (based on a folktale by John Luther Long), which he saw in London in 1900, Puccini achieved a score that is both gargantuan and fascinating: a true masterpiece. He collaborated with librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa to adapt the tragic story of Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of US naval officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, represents a broken dream: she believes she is embarking on a real marriage, but it is actually a short-lived romance, shattered when he abandons her shortly after they marry. She lives her life in the hope of his return; a tragic dream. She, who renounced her religion and community, learns too late that, for Pinkerton, her marriage is merely an illusion, with tragic consequences. 

Three years later, Cio-Cio-San and her son, Dolore, see Pinkerton's ship in the harbour. She excitedly awaits his visit, but when Pinkerton and his American wife Kate arrive and want to take the boy to America, Cio-Cio-San says goodbye to her son and takes her own life.

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