Madama Butterfly at Ramon Gener's webcam ENG (2012-13)
Channel: LiceuOperaBarcelona
Date: 23/07/2012

Puccini's most popular opera

Operatic history abounds in tragic endings but few touch the audience's heartstrings as poignantly as the death of Cio-Cio-San. Puccini's music is unequalled in its ability to arouse emotion and make us feel the characters' joy and pain as though they were our own. 
 
Madama Butterfly (Milan, 1904) tells the harrowing tale of Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San), a geisha in Nagasaki, who trusts blindly in the love of a cynical American naval officer, Pinkerton. But after marrying her under a Japanese law that allows the wife to be repudiated, Pinkerton goes home to America. When Butterfly discovers that the man she loves has come back with his American wife and wants to take charge of the son she bore him after his departure, she puts an end to her western dream and commits hara-kiri. The focus is on Butterfly -- her admirable capacity for love and her delicacy --  while the music , with its touches of refined exoticism, suits her fragile and sensitive character to a tee. 

Opera in three acts. Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica based on the play of the same title by David Belasco. Music by Gioacomo Puccini. First performed at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 17 February 1904. New version premiered at the Teatro Grande in Brescia on 28 May 1904. First performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 10 December 1909.