Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly

When Puccini saw, in London, American playwright David Belasco’s drama dealing with the story of a Japanese geisha, he was moved to tears, despite his inability to understand a single English word. His subsequent choice of the subject matter implied that in the opera, Madama Butterfly, he had to master new forms of musical expression, a situation which was to repeat itself later on, with Turandot. He set out to study the customs and music of distant Japan, had a quantity of gramophone records sent in from Tokyo to become acquainted with Japanese folk music, and expended enormous efforts on capturing the Japanese local colour. Madama Butterfly is a masterpiece of atmospheric detail and poetry. Its premiere, at Milan’s La Scala on February 17, 1904, ended with stamping, whistles and merciless critical panning: the composer was blamed notably for long-winded scenes, superfluous episodes in Act One, and overall lack of dramatic suspense. Puccini made changes in the opera, dividing it into three acts and adding a new tenor aria, “Addio, fiorito asil,” in which the American officer, Pinkerton, bids farewell to the places where he spent beautiful moments of fateful happiness with the charming fifteen-year-old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, known as Butterfly. The work’s new version was first presented in Brescia, on May 28, 1904, and scored a triumph. Its subsequent world conquest was set off by the premiere of a Covent Garden production starring Ema Destinn and Enrico Caruso, on July 10, 1905.

In this country, Madama Butterfly was first staged by the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera), on September 29, 1907.

Premiere: Mar 7, 1985

Response in the press