Madama Butterfly

Giacomo Puccini

Madama Butterfly

This production ran: Oct 11 - Apr 11

This Production is in the past

Overview

All remaining performances in the 2019–20 season have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Click here to learn more.

Leading sopranos Hui He and Ana María Martínez share the heartbreaking title role of the doomed geisha, with tenors Piero Pretti and Bruce Sledge as the American naval officer who abandons her. Paulo Szot and Markus Brück share the role of Sharpless, and Elizabeth DeShong is Suzuki, alternating with MaryAnn McCormick. Pier Giorgio Morandi is on the podium for Anthony Minghella’s sweeping production, a perennial audience favorite.

A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, and the Lithuanian National Opera

Production a gift of Mercedes and Sid Bass

Revival a gift of Barbara Augusta Teichert

Languages

Languages sung in Madama Butterfly

Sung In

Italian

Titles

Title languages displayed for Madama Butterfly

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Italian

Timeline

Timeline for the show, Madama Butterfly

Estimated Run Time

3 hrs 15 mins

  • House Opens

  • Act I

    60 mins

  • Intermission

    30 mins

  • Act II

    50 mins

  • Intermission

    20 mins

  • Act III

    35 mins

  • Opera Ends

Madama Butterfly

World premiere: Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1904. Met premiere: February 11, 1907. The title character of Madama Butterfly—a young Japanese geisha who clings to the belief that her arrangement with a visiting American naval officer is a loving and permanent marriage—is one of the defining roles in opera. The story triggers ideas about cultural and sexual imperialism for people far removed from the opera house, and film, Broadway, and popular culture in general have riffed endlessly on it. The lyric beauty of Puccini’s score, especially the music for the thoroughly believable lead role, has made Butterfly timeless.

Creators

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) was immensely popular in his own lifetime, and his mature works remain staples in the repertory of most of the world’s opera companies. His librettists for Madama Butterfly, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, had also collaborated with the composer on his previous two operas, Tosca and La Bohème. Giacosa, a dramatist, was responsible for the stories and Illica, a poet, worked primarily on the words themselves.

PRODUCTION

Anthony Minghella

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER

Carolyn Choa

SET DESIGNER

Michael Levine

COSTUME DESIGNER

Han Feng

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Peter Mumford

PUPPETRY

Blind Summit Theatre

Headshot of Giacomo Puccini

COMPOSER

Giacomo Puccini

Videos

Setting

Madama Butterfly

The opera takes place in the Japanese port city of Nagasaki at the turn of the last century, at a time of expanding American international presence. Japan was hesitantly defining its global role, and Nagasaki was one of the country’s few ports open to foreign ships. Temporary marriages for foreign sailors were not unusual.

Music

Puccini achieved a new level of sophistication with his use of the orchestra in this score, with subtle colorings and sonorities throughout. But the opera rests squarely on the performer of the title role: On stage for most of the time, Cio-Cio-San is the only character that experiences true (and tragic) development. The singer must convey an astounding array of emotions and characteristics, from ethereal to fleshly to intelligent to dreamy-bordering-on-insane, to resigned in the final scene.

Madama Butterfly