Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts. Music by Giacomo Puccini and libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

Based on the short story Madame Butterfly (1898) by John Luther Long, later dramatized by David Belasco

First performance, Teatro alla Scala, Milan on February 17, 1904.

Twenty years separate the premieres of Giacomo Puccini’s first opera, Le Villi from the premiere of his sixth opera, Madama Butterfly. In those twenty years, Puccini had become the acknowledged heir to the great Giuseppe Verdi as the leading composer of Italian opera, blazing a trail of success that moved opera into new realms of realism. His greatest successes to this point in his career were in collaboration with the literary team of Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, who created the librettos for La Bohème and Tosca. It was natural for Puccini to turn to his trusted partners to create the script for Madama Butterfly. Butterfly is based on the play by David Belasco – a play that Puccini himself saw in London in 1900. The Belasco play is based on a story that first appeared in Century Magazine in 1898. This story by John Luther Long deals with East-West cultural conflicts.

The rights to Belasco’s play were not immediately available to Puccini. Undaunted, he set his librettists to begin the script for the new opera based on the Century Magazine story. As a result, the first version of the new opera script focused on the East-West conflict as told through the story of an innocent geisha fallen victim to an imperialist American naval officer. Puccini instinctively knew that this direction was not the stuff of great theatre, and after months of heated arguments with Illica and Giacosa, they refocused the libretto on the personal tragedy of the main character – the work became intimate, moving, real – and in so doing, they created a lyric drama for the ages.

The 1904 premiere of Madama Butterfly at La Scala was a fiasco. The opera went through three revisions until it was successfully reintroduced in the form we know it today. Madama Butterfly is a complete realization of powerful psychological drama that fully reveals the moving character of the title character. It is no surprise that it was Puccini’s favorite from among his operas.

Act I
1900; Nagasaki Japan, in a house overlooking the harbor. As the curtain rises, preparations are being made for a Japanese wedding between a Lieutenant in the US Navy named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, and the geisha Cio-Cio-San, who is also known as Madam Butterfly. Before the bride arrives, the marriage broker, Goro, is showing Pinkerton the house that will be theirs. They discuss the usual arrangements -- Pinkerton and his new bride will live together as husband and wife until his ship sails off – everyone acknowledges that the Japanese ceremony isn’t really a wedding service, but only a formality to this arrangement. When the American consul, Sharpless arrives, he and Pinkerton drink a toast to America. Puccini blatantly uses the American National Anthem to introduce this wonderful duet. The bride and her relatives arrive for the ceremony. They are led by a group of geishas. For this opera, Puccini immersed himself in the sound of Japanese music, and this passage is a great example of the brilliant results.
Pinkerton and Butterfly greet each other in a touching, delicate scene. The wedding is completed in authentic Japanese style. The celebration, however, is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San’s uncle, the priest Bonze, who has learned that she has renounced the religion of her birth to marry the American. When her family hears this, they join the Bonze in renouncing her from their family. Left alone, shattered by the condemnation of her family, Butterfly is comforted by her new husband. Night is falling, and Act I ends with one of the most sumptuous, romantic duets in all of music history – the famous love duet between Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton.

Act II
It has been three years since Pinkerton’s ship set sail and he bid farewell to his Japanese wife. Her servant and confidant, Suzuki has stayed with Cio-Cio-San, even though her family has renounced her. She tells Butterfly that Pinkerton will not return. This is something the former geisha refuses to believe and in the stunning aria Un bel di vedremo, or One beautiful day he will come she tells Suzuki that she will wait for her husband to return. Sharpless comes to visit. He has received a letter from Pinkerton, and his intention in this visit is to tell Butterfly that Pinkerton will soon be returning to Nagasaki, but that he has left her for good. When he arrives, however, Sharpless cannot help but see that she has changed her home to be an American one. She believes she is still married, and no longer a citizen of Japan, but rather, an American wife. Listen how the consul greets her as “Madama Butterfly” to which she corrects him with “Madama Pinkerton, prego”. Before Sharpless can read the letter to her, they are interrupted by Goro. He has brought a new suitor for her – the wealthy Yamadori, who is willing to take her as his wife. But Butterfly refuses, claiming that she is and remains married to Pinkerton. She dismisses Yamadori, giving Sharpless the opportunity to read the letter to her. Sharpless is so touched by Butterfly’s sincerity, that he does not share the news with her, but rather simply asks her, “What if Pinkerton does not return” at which she defiantly brings forth her blond haired, blue eyed three-year old son. Learning that Butterfly has borne Pinkerton’s son, Sharpless leaves, resolved to contact him. Cio-Cio-San and Suzuki are left alone when they hear a cannon shot from the harbor announcing the arrival of a ship. As they have done a million times before, they look out onto the harbor to see whose ship it is – this time, it is Pinkerton’s. Joyously, they prepare the house for his return in the famous Flower Duet. As night falls, Butterfly waits for Pinkerton as the chorus, off in the distance, sings the beautiful ‘Humming Chorus”.

Act III
Dawn is breaking. Butterfly has not moved all night, waiting for Pinkerton, who does not come. Suzuki encourages her to take her son and rest. Moments later, Sharpless arrives with Pinkerton and an American woman – his new wife. They have come to take Pinkerton’s son to raise him in the US. They convince Suzuki to help them. Pinkerton’s remorse is profound, and beautifully expressed in the aria “Addio fiorito asile’ or “Farewell my asylum adorned with flowers” Pinkerton and Sharpless leave Suzuki and Kate Pinkerton alone to break the news to Butterfly. When Cio-Cio-San enters and learns the truth, she coldly agrees to give up the child, but only if Pinkerton himself comes to get him. Left alone, she determines that a death with honor is better than a life without honor. As she falls lifeless, having taken her own life, Pinkerton, remorseful, returns to the home where they were once happy -- too late.

The Cast (in order of vocal appearance)

Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton (tenor) - Naval officer serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln

Goro (tenor) – Japanese marriage broker

Suzuki (mezzo-soprano) – Servant and confidant to Cio-Cio-San

Sharpless (baritone) – American consul stationed in Japan

Cio-Cio-San (soprano) – Former geisha, called Butterfly

Bonze (bass) – Priest, Cio-Cio-San’s uncle

Yamadori (baritone) – Wealthy businessman

Giacomo Puccini (1856-1924)

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was born in Lucca in Tuscany, Italy on December 22, 1858 into a family of five generations of church organists, choirmasters and composers. His father died when Giacomo was five years old, and he was sent to study with his uncle Fortunato Magi, who considered him to be a poor student. As a teenager, Puccini served as an organist to the area churches and played the piano as entertainment at social events. In March 1876, the twenty-year old walked thirty kilometers to attend a performance of Verdi’s latest opera success, Aida. This event changed his life and he decided that he would make opera his life’s work.

The greatest influence in Puccini’s life was his mother, who petitioned and received a grant to send her son to the Milan Conservatory, where he worked diligently at his music and received his diploma in 1883. While studying at the Conservatory, Puccini obtained a libretto from Ferdinando Fontana, and entered a competition for a one-act opera in 1882. Although he did not win, Le Villi was later staged in 1884 at the Teatro Dal Verme and it caught the attention of Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, who commissioned a second opera, Edgar, in 1889.

Edgar failed: it was a bad story and Fontana's libretto was poor. This may have had an effect on Puccini's thinking because when he began his next opera, Manon Lescaut, he announced that he would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist" could spoil it. Ricordi persuaded him to accept Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project. Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, due mainly to Puccini constantly changing his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Illica and Giacosa, came together to complete the opera. They remained with Puccini for his next three operas and probably his greatest successes: La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.

The rights to David Belasco’s play, Madame Butterfly were not immediately available to Puccini. Undaunted, he set his librettists to begin the script for the new opera based on the Century Magazine story. As a result, the first version of the new opera script focused on the East-West conflict as told through the story of an innocent geisha fallen victim to an imperialist American naval officer. Puccini instinctively knew that this direction was not the stuff of great theatre, and after months of heated arguments with Illica and Giacosa, they refocused the libretto on the personal tragedy of the main character – the work became intimate, moving, real – and in so doing, they created a lyric drama for the ages.

The 1904 premiere of Madama Butterfly at La Scala was a fiasco. The opera went through three revisions until it was successfully reintroduced in the form we know it today. Madama Butterfly is a complete realization of powerful psychological drama that fully reveals the moving character of the title character. It is no surprise that it was Puccini’s favorite from among his operas.