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Madama Butterfly

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Poetry & Opera

        Operas by Giacomo Puccini

   Le Villi (1884)
   Edgar (1889)
   Manon Lescaut (1893)
   La bohème (1896)
   Tosca (1900)
   Madama Butterfly (1904)
   La fanciulla del West (1910)
   La rondine (1917)
   Il trittico: Il tabarro (1918)
   Il trittico: Suor Angelica (1918)
   Il trittico: Gianni Schicchi (1918)
   Turandot (1926)

   Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts
   (originally two acts) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by
   Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. The opera was based partly on a
   short story by John Luther Long, which was turned into a play by David
   Belasco; it was also based on the novel, Madame Chrysanthème (1887), by
   Pierre Loti.

   The first version of the opera premiered February 17, 1904 at La Scala
   in Milan. It consisted of two acts and was very poorly received. On May
   28 of that year, a revised version was released in Brescia. The
   revision split the disproportionately long second act in two, and
   included some other minor changes. In its new form Puccini's opera was
   a huge success; it crossed the Atlantic to the Metropolitan Opera in
   New York in 1907. Today, the opera is enjoyed in two acts in Italy,
   while in America the three-act version is more popular. In fact,
   according to Opera America, Madama Butterfly is the most
   often-performed opera in North America.

   The opera belongs essentially to the city of Nagasaki, and according to
   American scholar Arthur Groos was based on events that actually
   occurred there in the early 1890s. Japan's best-known opera singer
   Miura Tamaki won international fame for her perfomances as Cio-Cio-san
   and her statue, together with that of Puccini, can be found in
   Nagasaki's Glover Garden.

Roles

   Prima, February 17, 1904
   ( Cleofonte Campanini)
   Cio-Cio-San (Madame Butterfly) soprano Rosina Storchio
   Suzuki, her maid mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Giaconia
   B. F. Pinkerton, Lieutenant in the United States Navy tenor Giovanni
   Zenatello
   Sharpless, United States consul at Nagasaki baritone Giuseppe de Luca
   Goro, a marriage broker tenor
   Prince Yamadori baritone
   The Bonze, Cio-Cio-San's uncle bass
   Yakuside, Cio-Cio-San's uncle bass
   The Imperial Commissioner bass
   The Official Registrar bass
   Cio-Cio-San's mother mezzo-soprano
   The aunt soprano
   The cousin soprano
   Kate Pinkerton mezzo-soprano
   Dolore ('Sorrow'), Cio-Cio-San's child silent
   Cio-Cio-San's relations and friends and servants

Synopsis (final version)

   Original poster

   :Time: 1904.

          Place: Nagasaki, Japan.

Act I

   In the first act Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, a sailor with the USS
   Abraham Lincoln in the port of Nagasaki marries Cio-Cio-San
   [tʃotʃosan], or what her friends call her "Butterfly," a 15-year-old
   Japanese geisha. The Matchmaker Goro has arranged the wedding contract
   and rented a little hillside house for the newlyweds. The American
   consul Sharpless, a kind man, begs Pinkerton to forego this plan, when
   he learns that Butterfly innocently believes the marriage to be
   binding. (In fact, Pinkerton may revoke the contract whenever he tires
   of the "marriage.") The lieutenant laughs at Sharpless's concern, and
   the bride appears with her geisha friends, joyous and smiling.
   Sharpless learns that, to show her trust in Pinkerton, she has
   renounced the faith of her ancestors and so she can never return to her
   own people. (Butterfly: "Hear what I would tell you.") Pinkerton also
   learns that she is the daughter of a disgraced samurai who committed
   seppuku, and so the little girl was sold to be trained as a geisha. The
   marriage contract is signed and the guests are drinking a toast to the
   young couple when the bonze, a Buddhist monk, (uncle of Cio-Cio-San,
   and presumably having entered the monastery in disgrace after the
   father's seppuku) enters, uttering imprecations against her for having
   taken to the foreign faith, and induces her friends and relatives to
   abandon her. Pinkerton, annoyed, hurries the guests off, and they
   depart in anger. With loving words he consoles the weeping bride, and
   the two begin their new life happily. (Duet, Pinkerton, Butterfly:
   "Just like a little squirrel"; Butterfly: "But now, beloved, you are
   the world"; "Ah! Night of rapture.")

Act II

   Pinkerton's tour of duty is over, and he has returned to the United
   States, after promising Butterfly to return "When the robins nest
   again." Three years have passed. Butterfly's faithful servant Suzuki
   rightly suspects that he has abandoned them, but is upbraided for want
   of faith by her trusting mistress. (Butterfly: "Weeping? and why?")
   Meanwhile, Sharpless has been sent by Pinkerton with a letter telling
   Butterfly that he has married an American wife. Butterfly (who cannot
   read English) is enraptured by the sight of her lover's letter and
   cannot conceive that it contains anything but an expression of his
   love. Seeing Butterfly's joy, Sharpless cannot bear to hurt her with
   the truth. When Goro brings Prince Yamadori, a rich suitor, to meet
   Butterfly, she refuses to consider his suit, telling them with great
   offense that she is already married to Pinkerton. Goro explains that a
   wife abandoned is a wife divorced, but Butterfly declares defiantly,
   "That may be Japanese custom, but I am now an American woman."
   Sharpless cannot move her, and at last, as if to settle all doubt,
   Butterfly proudly presents her fair-haired child. "Can my husband
   forget this?" she challenges. Butterfly explains that the boy's name is
   "Trouble," but when when his father returns, his name will be "Joy."
   The consul departs sadly. But Butterfly has long been a subject of
   gossip, and Suzuki catches the duplicitous Goro spreading more. Just as
   things cannot seem worse, distant guns salute the new arrival of a
   man-of-war, the Abraham Lincoln, Pinkerton's ship. Butterfly and
   Suzuki, in great excitement, deck the house with flowers, and array
   themselves and the child in gala dress. All three peer through shoji
   doors to watch for Pinkerton's coming. As night falls, a long
   orchestral passage with choral humming (the "humming chorus") plays.
   Suzuki and the child gradually fall asleep - but Butterfly, alert and
   sleepless, never stirs.

Act III

   Act three opens at dawn with Butterfly still intently watching. Suzuki
   awakens and brings the baby to her. (Butterfly: "Sweet, thou art
   sleeping.") Suzuki persuades the exhausted Butterfly to rest. Pinkerton
   and Sharpless arrive and tell Suzuki the terrible truth: Pinkerton has
   abandoned Butterfly for an American wife named Kate. The lieutenant is
   stricken with guilt and shame (Pinkerton: "Oh, the bitter fragrance of
   these flowers!"), but is too much of a coward to tell Butterfly
   himself. He has assigned this awful task to his wife, Kate. Suzuki, at
   first violently angry, is finally persuaded to listen as Sharpless
   assures her that Mrs. Pinkerton will care for the child if Butterfly
   will give him up. Pinkerton departs. Suzuki brings Butterfly into the
   room. She is radiant, expecting to find her husband, but is confronted
   instead by Pinkerton's new wife. As Sharpless watches silently, Kate
   begs Butterfly's forgiveness and promises to care for her child if she
   will surrender him to Pinkerton. Butterfly receives the truth with
   apathetic calmness, politely congratulates her replacement, and asks
   Kate to tell her husband that in he must come in half an hour, and then
   he may have Trouble, whoes name will then be changed to Joy. She
   herself will "find peace." She bows her visitors out, and is left alone
   with young Trouble. She bids a pathetic farewell to her child (Finale,
   Butterfly: "You, O beloved idol!"), blindfolds him, and puts a doll and
   small American flag in his hands. She takes her father's dagger--the
   weapon with which he made his suicide--and reads its inscription: "To
   die with honour, when one can no longer live with honour." She takes
   the sword and a white scarf behind a screen, and emerges a moment later
   with the scarf wrapped round her throat. She embraces her child for the
   last time and sinks to the floor. Pinkerton and Sharpless rush in and
   discover the dying girl. The lieutant cries out Butterfly's name in
   anguish as the curtain falls.

Noted arias and duets

     * Quanto cielo! Quanto mar! (Entrance of Butterfly; (sung by
       Butterfly and the chorus)
     * Viene la sera (Evening is falling; (sung by Butterfly and
       Pinkerton)
     * Un bel dì vedremo (One fine day we shall see; (sung by Butterfly)
     * Addio, fiorito asil (Adieu, flowered refuge; (sung by Pinkerton)
     * Con onor muore (Death of Butterfly - She dies with honour) (sung by
       Butterfly)

Adaptations

     * 1915: The opera was made into a film. It was directed by Sidney
       Olcott and starred Mary Pickford.
     * 1922: Another film, The Toll of the Sea, based on the opera/play
       was released. This movie, which starred Anna May Wong, moved the
       story to China. It was also the first two-strip Technicolor motion
       picture ever released.
     * 1984: British Pop impresario Malcolm McLaren wrote and performed a
       UK hit single, 'Madame Butterfly (Un Bel Di Vedremo)', produced by
       Stephen Hague, based on the opera and featuring the famous aria.
     * 1988: In David Henry Hwang's play M. Butterfly, about a story of a
       French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer, Butterfly is denounced
       as a western stereotype of a timid, submissive Asian.
     * 1989: The Broadway and West End musical Miss Saigon was, in part,
       based on Madama Butterfly. The story was moved to Vietnam and
       Thailand and set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the
       Fall of Saigon.
     * 1995: Frédéric Mitterrand directed a film version of the opera in
       Tunisia, North Africa, starring Chinese opera singer Ying Huang.
     * 1996: The Album Pinkerton by the rock band Weezer was based loosely
       on the opera.
     * 2001: Aria by Pjotr Sapegin, an animated short inspired by the
       opera, awarded as best animated short by Tickleboots best online
       videos 2006 and Best short film Norway 2002, won Grand Prix in
       Odense International Film Festival 2002 and won the audience award
       in Århus Film Festival 2002.
     * 2004: On the 100th anniversary of Madama Butterfly, Shigeaki
       Saegusa composed Jr. Butterfly to a libretto by Masahiko Shimada.

Criticisms

   Since the 1990s, many have criticized or analyzed Madama Butterfly as
   part of a colonialist project of creating images of Asia. These critics
   posit that it presents a "feminized" view of Asia in the form of
   Cio-Cio, and one that in the end of the play is discarded and inferior.
   One example of this critique is the postmodernist version M. Butterfly,
   by David Henry Hwang. Many Asians and Asian-Americans resent the
   passive and tragic stereotyping of Asians, and view it as part of a
   larger racist/colonialist mentality prevalent when the opera was
   written.

   Other critiques centre on the supposedly anti-American tone of the
   play, written by an Italian and presented mostly for European
   audiences. These critics claim that the historical basis for the
   American character was likely a French doctor or Scottish engineer, and
   that the intention of making him an "arrogant" American had more to do
   with Europe's anti-U.S. sentiment in the immediate aftermath of the
   Spanish-American War in 1898. Furthermore, Japan in 1904 was not a
   colony of any country, including the U.S., and, on the contrary, had
   defeated Russia in the same year in the Russo-Japanese War. Therefore
   the image of a colonialist America and a weak, passive Japan was
   possibly a projection of other Western/Asian relationships (e.g.,
   Britain in China) on two third parties. Additionally, anti-American
   sentiment in Europe at the time was radically different from the more
   modern flavours: America was still seen as an extension of Europe
   proper, but in a junior sense, as the imperialist actions of the United
   States back then were minor when compared with the large-scale conquest
   and exploitation of Asia and Africa by European nations.

   Both of these critiques fit into the larger view that the play presents
   ignorant stereotypes of foreign lands, and has more to do with
   idealized and romanticized images than with reality. The play also
   categorizes the world into polarities, Occidental and Oriental.
   Following these interpretations, the coincidence of the play and the
   rise of European colonialism were not unrelated.

   In contrast, one may consider that in 1904 the general opinion of
   Europeans was that both the United States and Japan were upstart powers
   with colonial aspirations.
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