Opera Explained | Madama Butterfly by Puccini (Audio)

"An introduction to....Puccini - Madama Butterfly" written by Thomson Smillie, narrated by David Timson.

It is one of the enigmas of opera that some of today’s most popular, adored even, works in the repertoire were disasters at their premieres, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly being the most notorious exemplars of the phenomenon. But it is axiomatic that they overcame their difficult deliveries to become healthy and robust specimens of the operatic race.

Puccini loved women, in art and in life, and named many of his smash hits after his heroines: an oddly overlooked fact. Butterfly is not only the central character of the opera, she is the opera itself. From the moment of her intentionally delayed entrance – and what an entrance! – she is rarely off the stage. Other characters matter only insofar as they relate to her, and her astonishing combination of childish delicacy (she is allegedly fourteen years old, a real challenge to the singer-actress) and immense power of character and voice makes her one of the most compelling figures in opera.

Puccini was, it cannot be said too often, a supreme master of theatre, and had an unerring sense of what ‘works’. So when he was taken to see David Belasco’s smash-hit play Madama Butterfly, despite not speaking a word of English, he sensed instinctively that it would make a brilliant opera. The theme of the brash young American who sows his wild oats and seeks to
avoid the consequences was to fuel many later, including Vietnam-era, works, but at the time was a real shocker to late Victorians. But once again it is the combination of outstanding characters (or maybe just one particularly outstanding character), a deeply moving plot (if you don’t weep at the closing pages of the score ask for your money back!), and music of overwhelming power that guarantees the opera’s success. Even those with hearts of stone find themselves moved by the exquisite Entrance of Butterfly, stirred by the highly erotic love duet, thrilled by the great aria ‘One Fine Day’, and crushed by the mighty pentatonic chords that hammer out Butterfly’s death agony. Strong stuff!

Tracklist:
1. Introduction
2. Act I
3. Sharpless counsels caution
4. Introduction and Entrance of Butterfly
5. The Wedding Ceremony
6. Butterfly and Pinkerton
7. End of Act I
8. Act II – Introduction and ‘Un bel di’
9. Sharpless and Butterfly
10. Butterfly’s son
11. The return of Pinkerton
12. Waiting for Pinkerton – The Humming Chorus
13. Butterfly’s suicide

Performance: Miriam Gauci, Yordy Ramiro, Gerog Tichy
Slovak Philharmonic Chorus
Slovak RSO / Alexander Rahbari