Organization

Singer

Baritone

David Bizic

Sharpless

Mezzo-soprano

Elizabeth DeShong

Suzuki

Tenor

Brian Jagde

B.F. Pinkerton

Soprano

Eleonora Buratto

Cio-Cio-San

Choreographer

Carolyn Choa

Lighting designer

Peter Mumford

Costume designer

Han Feng

Set designer

Michael Levine

Stage director

Anthony Minghella

Conductor

Alexander Soddy

Scott Scully

Goro

Bass

Raymond Aceto

Uncle Bonze

Yunuet Laguna

Kate Pinkerton

Edyta Kulczak

Jeongcheol Cha

Prince Yamadori

Christopher Job

The imperial commissioner

Bradley Garvin

Thomas Glass

Viktor Antipenko

Matthew Grills

Annie Rosen

Megan Esther Grey

Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre

English National Opera

The Metropolitan Opera

Italian

Madama Butterfly -  (Madame Butterfly)

New York City

United States

Metropolitan Opera House

Madama Butterfly Puccini

Public

Madame Butterfly

English

German

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Approved

Puccini’s heartbreaking tragedy returns in an evocative staging by late filmmaker Anthony Minghella, with soprano Eleonora Buratto making her role debut as C...

Soprano Eleonora Buratto takes on the touchstone title role of the tragic geisha, following earlier Met successes as Norina in Don Pasquale and Liù in Turandot. Tenor Brian Jagde is the callous American naval officer who betrays her, alongside mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as her devoted maid Suzuki and baritone David Bizic as the consul Sharpless. Alexander Soddy conducts Anthony Minghella’s evocative, ever-popular staging.

Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1904. Met premiere: February 11, 1907. 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.

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.
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.
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.

Madame Butterfly by Puccini, From (2022/2022), Directed by Anthony Minghella, Carolyn Choa,, Conductor Alexander Soddy, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, United States

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