Madame Butterfly OPERA @ A GLANCE
L A N G U AG E
F I R ST P E R F O R M E D
Italian with English subtitles
February 17, 1904
COMPOSER
THEMES
Giacomo Puccini was born on
L I B R E T TO Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa
love exoticism family death
December 22, 1858 in Italy and came from a musical family. His father was a choirmaster and organist, and Puccini’s musical journey started when he was six years old. He discovered a love for operas and went to the Milan Conservatory to learn composition. He wrote 12 operas before his death in 1924.
SY N O PS I S Act One: Nagasaki, Japan. The opera opens moments before a wedding. An American Navy Lieutenant enters the stage. This man, named Pinkerton, has just paid for an arranged marriage with a fifteen-year-old girl, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madame Butterfly. He speaks to another man, US consul Sharpless. Sharpless has some concerns about the marriage: He is convinced that the marriage means more to Butterfly than it does to Pinkerton. He fears that Pinkerton will destroy the young girl. Pinkerton tells him not to worry about the marriage. One day, he says, he will make a ‘genuine’ marriage to an American woman. Meanwhile, Butterfly prepares for the wedding. She is charming and well- mannered but clearly very young. She is from a noble family that has been forced into poverty. She discusses her poor circumstances, revealing that her father committed suicide at the request of the emperor. As a result of all this misfortune, Butterfly has had to earn a living entertaining men with song and dance as a geisha. The wedding is a brief civil ceremony. As the guests celebrate and toast to the new couple, the voice of The Bonze is heard. He is a
Buddhist monk and Butterfly’s uncle. He reveals to Butterfly’s family that she has converted to Christianity, forsaking their traditions and their ancestors. He and the other Japanese guests renounce her and disperse. Pinkerton tries to comfort Butterfly. Suzuki, her faithful servant, prepares her for the night. The newly-weds are left alone. Darkness has fallen, the sky is full of stars. Act Two: Three years later. Butterfly and Suzuki are on the verge of complete poverty yet again. Soon after he married Butterfly, Pinkerton had left Nagasaki, promising that he would return in the spring ‘when the robins nest’. It is now three years later, and Suzuki tries to make Butterfly see that Pinkerton will not return. Butterfly is certain he will come back and determined to wait for him.
the truth—that Pinkerton will never return to her— but he struggles to admit it, finally blurting out that she should marry Yamadori. Butterfly tells him that her husband must return because she has given birth to his son. Sharpless promises to give this news to Pinkerton. A cannon-shot is heard from the harbor. Pinkerton’s ship has returned. Butterfly waits up all night for her husband’s arrival, but he does not appear until the early morning, when she is finally asleep. He and Sharpless find Suzuki alone, and Pinkerton reveals that he has a new American wife named Kate. They want to take Butterfly’s son back to America with them, where Kate will raise him as her own.
Sharpless visits with a letter from Pinkerton. Before he can read it to her, the wealthy prince Yamadori arrives. He knows that Butterfly has been abandoned by her husband and wishes to take her as his bride. She rejects his offer, saying her husband will be back soon.
Pinkerton cannot bear the guilt that the sight of the little house, decorated for his arrival, causes him. When Butterfly awakens, she looks for him, only to find Kate. Sharpless, Kate, and Suzuki, reveal the state of affairs. In anguish and despair, Butterfly tells her son that she must leave him so that he can go to America without worrying about his mother.
The prince leaves and Sharpless resumes his attempt to read the letter. He tries gently to reveal
As the mournful opera comes to a close, the heartbroken Butterfly ends her life.