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Madama Butterfly (Italian pronunciation: [maˈdaːma ˈbatterflai]; Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
Madam Butterfly (in Italian Madama Butterfly) is one of opera’s most enduring tales of unrequited love. Puccini’s poignant score follows the tragic tale of Cio Cio San, a young Japanese girl who falls in love with American naval officer Pinkerton, with devastating consequences.
- Overview
- Background and context
- Cast and vocal parts
- Setting and story summary
- Act I
Madama Butterfly, opera in three acts (originally two acts) by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa) that premiered at La Scala opera house in Milan on February 17, 1904. The work is one of the most frequently performed of all operas.
While in London in 1900, Puccini attended a performance of American theatrical producer and playwright David Belasco’s one-act play Madame Butterfly, which recounted the tale (derived from a short story of the same name by American author John Luther Long) of a Japanese girl’s ill-fated love for an American sailor. Although he knew no English, Puccini responded to the play’s poignancy and asked his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, to obtain the story’s operatic rights. Early in 1901 the composer and his favourite librettists, Illica and Giacosa, with whom he had previously worked with success on Manon Lescaut, La Bohème, and Tosca, set about creating Madama Butterfly.
Puccini and his librettists took steps to introduce an element of realism into the new opera. Illica even traveled to Nagasaki to investigate local colour, while Puccini set about researching Japanese music. He visited with the wife of the Japanese ambassador to Italy, who sang Japanese folk songs to him. She also acquired for him sheet music for further study. Puccini’s music for the opera reflects what he had learned and even makes a few direct references to the Japanese songs he had been exposed to. To delineate the American characters, Puccini often used a bluff forthright manner of expression, and he occasionally worked in bits of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
•Madame Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San), a geisha (soprano)
•Suzuki, her servant (mezzo-soprano)
•B.F. Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy (tenor)
•Kate Pinkerton, Pinkerton’s American wife (mezzo-soprano)
•Sharpless, the American consul (baritone)
•Goro, a marriage broker (tenor)
Madama Butterfly is set in and around a house on a hill overlooking the harbour at Nagasaki, Japan, in 1904.
On the flower-filled terrace of a Japanese house overlooking the harbour.
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Goro, a marriage broker, is showing Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American naval officer, the house that Pinkerton has just bought for his honeymoon with his new Japanese bride, Cio-Cio-San (Madame Butterfly). After introducing the servants, including Suzuki, Goro describes the upcoming wedding—as well as the long list of relatives who will attend. Sharpless, the American consul, arrives, out of breath from his walk up the hill. The two Americans relax with drinks as Sharpless admires the view and the flimsy little house. Pinkerton has leased it for 999 years, with the option to cancel each month; contracts are flexible in Japan, he says. Pinkerton sings the praises of the “vagabond Yankee” who travels the world, taking his pleasure at every shore (“Dovunque al mondo”). He ignores Sharpless’s warning that such a shallow way of life can lead to sadness, and he boasts that his marriage contract, like the house, is for a term of 999 years but can be canceled any month. The two men toast “America forever” (to a few bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner”). When Sharpless asks Pinkerton if the bride is pretty, Goro interrupts and says she is not only beautiful but also cheap: only 100 yen, less than 50 dollars. Pinkerton orders Goro to bring his bride to him. Sharpless remarks on Pinkerton’s restlessness and asks if he is really in love. Pinkerton replies that he is not sure whether he acts on love or a whim (“Amore o grillo”) but that he knows his bride is as delicate as a figure on a Japanese screen, a little butterfly that he must chase and capture, even if it means breaking her wings. Sharpless recalls Butterfly’s visit to the consulate a few days earlier. Although he never saw her, he was captivated by her voice and felt that she was really in love. He points out that it would be a shame to break her heart. But Pinkerton does not see the harm in his brand of “love.” Sharpless proposes a toast to Pinkerton’s family, and Pinkerton toasts the day on which he will marry, in a “real” wedding, an American bride.
Goro rushes in, announcing the arrival of Butterfly and her attendants. She is the happiest girl in Japan, she tells her friends, for she is answering the call of love. They all bow to Pinkerton, who is enchanted with Butterfly. She tells him about her family, which had once been prosperous; reversals had forced her and her friends to become geishas to support themselves. Her mother, though noble, is also very poor. When Sharpless asks about her father, she replies curtly, “Dead.” To break the tension, Sharpless asks how old she is. She engages in a little guessing game with the men, but finally she says that she is 15: “I am already old!” Sharpless is shocked, but Pinkerton thinks that she is at just the right age for marriage.
A parade of officials and relatives begins to arrive for the wedding: the Commissioner, the Registrar, Butterfly’s mother, her drunken uncle Yakuside, and her jealous and nitpicking cousins. As Goro vainly tries to quiet them, Sharpless remarks on how lucky Pinkerton is to have such a beautiful bride, and Pinkerton expresses his passion for her. Sharpless warns him that the marriage is no joke, for Butterfly believes in it. Pinkerton takes her aside for some private conversation. She shows him all of her possessions—a few trinkets, including a mysterious narrow box that she will not show him. When she brings it into the house, Goro whispers to Pinkerton that the box contains a knife; the emperor had given it to her father with the invitation to kill himself, and he had obeyed, committing ritual suicide. Butterfly returns to show Pinkerton figures that he thinks are dolls, but to Butterfly they represent hotoke—the souls of her ancestors. She tells him that she had secretly gone to the Christian mission the day before to convert to her new husband’s religion, for she wants to pray to the same god as he. For him, indeed, she would give up her family; she passionately throws herself into his arms.
Jul 29, 2022 · The playwriter John Luther Long’s, sister, Jennie Correll, lived in Nagasaki from 1892 until 1897. John supposedly based his story on Jennie’s narratives. Especially a young tea house girl by the name of Cho-San could have been the origin of Butterfly. Others would deny that.
His 1900 stage play Madame Butterfly was based on an 1898 short story by the American writer and lawyer John Luther Long, which itself was modeled after the 1887 novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti.
Madam Butterfly: a guide to Puccini's controversial masterpiece and its best recordings. Alexandra Wilson finds the best recordings of Puccini’s controversial opera about a devastating romantic encounter between East and West. Professor Alexandra Wilson. Published: February 1, 2022 at 1:45 am.
Puccini wrote loads of famous operas, with La bohème, Tosca and Turandot joining Madam Butterfly as being considered his best-known works. Unfortunately, he developed a nasty penchant for chain-smoking, and during the midst of composing his tenth opera, Turandot, he passed away at the age of 65.
