Organization

Conductor

Migran Agadzhanyan

Stage director

Mariusz Treliński

Set designer

Boris Kudlička

Costume designer

Magdalena Tesławska

Paweł Grabarczyk

Lighting designer

Stanisław Zięba

Chorus master

Konstantin Rylov

Choreographer

Emil Wesołowski

Singer

Soprano

Anzhelika Minasova

Cio-Cio-San

Tenor

Ahmed Agadi

B.F. Pinkerton

Mezzo-soprano

Anna Kiknadze

Suzuki

Baritone

Sergei Romanov

Sharpless

Oleg Balashov

Goro

Mariinsky Theatre

Italian

Madama Butterfly -  (Madame Butterfly)

Saint Petersburg

Russia

Mariinsky-2

Madama Butterfly

Public

Madame Butterfly

Russian

English

Approved

The great verist composer Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly owes its plot to the semi-autobiographical novel by the French naval officer and voyager Pierre Loti. Obvious fables with their abundance of descriptions of imaginary and actual real life in exotic lands had a suitable effect on the transformation of Loti’s texts into an opera libretto (apropos, this was also the case with Léo Delibes’ Lakmé). Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème underwent several stages of transformation: having originated with the memoirs of Japan of the sister of the American author John Luther Long, it became David Belasco’s play Madame Butterfly and, under this title, was performed in Italian theatres before subsequently transferring to the opera house. the love story of an American officer and a Japanese girl was to prove tragic for both, frivolity and trust playing out a cruel joke set against a background of two clashing cultures. But for Puccini, too, the focus lies on the strength and power of emotions, the plot acting as a premise for their existence, while the Japanese entourage produces a certain oriental flavour in the music. the Mariinsky Theatre performs a production by Polish stage director Mariusz Treliński, brought from Warsaw’s Opera Narodowa. Here the sets underlie the principle of unity of the natural and the artificial, so revered in Japan even nowadays. the costumes were produced by including references to clothing of the Meiji era, while the stage lighting encompasses strong and pure colours without semi-shade or transitions, and this creates the sensation of a mystery, a mystery which travellers in the past and readers of their novels tried to fathom. Denis Velikzhanin

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew