Madama Butterfly

Giacomo Puccini

Madama Butterfly

Jan 9 - Mar 28

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Cultures collide in Puccini’s poignant tale of a loyal geisha and a callous American naval officer whose fleeting romance leaves only devastation behind. In an exciting casting coup, three of today’s leading sopranos make their Met role debuts as Cio-Cio-San in a single season: Ailyn Pérez, Sonya Yoncheva, and Elena Stikhina. Tenors SeokJong Baek, Adam Smith—in his Met debut—and Matthew Polenzani co-star as Pinkerton in Anthony Minghella’s production, an “inspired vision” (The New York Times) that has become a classic.

Production a gift of Mercedes and Sid Bass

Read Synopsis

Sung In

Italian

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Italian

Estimated Run Time

3 hrs

  • House Opens

  • Act I

    60 mins

  • Intermission

    30 mins

  • Acts II and III

    90 mins

  • Opera Ends

Cast

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TBA

Performing

Performed

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Madama Butterfly

World premiere: Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1904. 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

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