Madama Butterfly

Composer Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

Japanese tragedy in three acts (1904)

recommended for 10 years and older

In Italian. With English and German surtitles.

Synopsis

Act 1

In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly". Her real name is Cio-Cio-San (from the Japanese word for "butterfly" (蝶々, chōchō, pronounced [tɕoꜜːtɕoː]); -san is a plain honorific). She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lenient. The wedding is to take place at the house. Butterfly had been so excited to marry an American that she had earlier secretly converted to Christianity. After the wedding ceremony, her uninvited uncle, a bonze, who has found out about her conversion, comes to the house, curses her and orders all the guests to leave, which they do while renouncing her. Pinkerton and Butterfly sing a love duet and prepare to spend their first night together.

Act 2

Pinkerton left shortly after the wedding, and three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for him to return. Her maid Suzuki keeps trying to convince her that he is not coming back, but Butterfly does not believe her. Goro, the marriage broker who arranged her marriage, keeps trying to marry her off again, but she does not listen to him either. The American consul, Sharpless, comes to the house with a letter which he has received from Pinkerton which asks him to break some news to Butterfly: that Pinkerton is coming back to Japan, but Sharpless cannot bring himself to finish it because Butterfly becomes very excited to hear that Pinkerton is coming back. Sharpless asks Butterfly what she would do if Pinkerton were not to return. She then reveals that she gave birth to Pinkerton's son after he had left and asks Sharpless to tell him.

From the hill house, Butterfly sees Pinkerton's ship arriving in the harbour. She and Suzuki prepare for his arrival, and then they wait. Suzuki and the child fall asleep, but Butterfly stays up all night waiting for him to arrive.

Act 3

Suzuki wakes up in the morning and Butterfly finally falls asleep. Sharpless and Pinkerton arrive at the house, along with Pinkerton's new American wife, Kate. They have come because Kate has agreed to raise the child. But, as Pinkerton sees how Butterfly has decorated the house for his return, he realizes he has made a huge mistake. He admits that he is a coward and cannot face her, leaving Suzuki, Sharpless, and Kate to break the news to Butterfly. Agreeing to give up her child if Pinkerton comes himself to see her, she then prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him. She places a small American flag in his hands and goes behind a screen, stabbing herself with her father's seppuku knife. Pinkerton rushes in, but he is too late, and Butterfly dies.

Program and cast

Duration est. 2 hours 55 minutes

1. Teil est. 07:30 pm - 08:30 pmInterval est. 08:30 pm - 09:00 pm2. Teil est. 09:00 pm - 10:25 pm

Conductor: Emmanuel Villaume

Production: Wolf Busse

Set Design: Otto Stich

Costume Design: Silvia Strahammer

Choruses: Christoph Heil

Cio-Cio-San: Elena Guseva

Suzuki: Irene Roberts

B. F. Pinkerton: Stefan Pop

Kate Pinkerton: Ekaterine Buachidze

Sharpless: Aleksei Isaev

Goro Nakodo: Ya-Chung Huang

Der Fürst Yamadori: Christian Rieger

Onkel Bonzo: Roman Chabaranok

Yakusidé: Bruno Khouri

Der Kaiserliche Kommissär: Yosif Slavov

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper