Madama Butterfly

Nagasaki, Japan, around 1900. Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the US navy, has fallen for the fifteen-year-old Cio-Cio-San, known as Butterfly. Yet the wedding, conducted according to Japanese ritual, is merely a pro forma farce for him – and before long his “human toy” finds herself alone with the son they had together. Three years later, he returns to Japan – though not because of her. Accompanied by his new wife, he wants to take the child back to America. Cio-Cio-San takes her own life.

The world premiere of what is perhaps Giacomo Puccini’s most popular opera – at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano on 17 February 1904 – turned out to be a fiasco. Possibly stirred up by his detractors, the audience rejected this tragedy of a Japanese woman out of hand. A fate that the opera incidentally shares with other global hits in the repertoire: Georges Bizet’s Carmen and Kurt Weill’s Rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny were equally slow in achieving the popularity they enjoy today. Puccini, however, believed in his work: »My Butterfly remains what it is – the most emotional opera I have ever written!«

He was right: just a few months after the debacle, MADAMA BUTTERFLY – in a slightly revised version – was a resounding success when it was performed at the Teatro Grande in Brescia.