Madama Butterfly
Intro
Madama Butterfly
Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)
13/06/2000 in Antwerp - 01/07/2000 in Ghent
- Musical direction: Silvio Varviso
- Director: Robert Carsen
- Cio Cio San: Cheryl Barker
- B.F. Pinkerton: Mikhail Dawidoff
- Sharpless: Peter Coleman-Wright
- Suzuki: Jean Rigby
When, in 1900, Giacomo Puccini attended David Belasco’s play "Madame Butterfly" in London, he found it to be ideal material for an opera. Although the composer only had a smattering of English, the tragic fate of the Japanese geisha Cio Cio San and Belasco’s amazing evocation of the Far East both made a deep impression on him.
The background to the story, which is based on fact, is the opening of the Japanese harbours to the American navy around the middle of the nineteenth century.
The subtle staging by Robert Carsen shows the irreconcilability of two cultures and Butterfly’s evolution from child-bride to fully mature, adult wife.
Practical
Surtitles: Dutch.
Team
- Musical direction
- Director
- Set design
- Costumes
-
Lightning
Jean Kalman
- Chorus master
- Cio Cio San
- B.F. Pinkerton
-
Sharpless
Peter Coleman-Wright
-
Suzuki
Jean Rigby
- Goro
-
Il Principe Yamadori
Julian Hartman
- Bonzo
- Kate Pinkerton
- Il Commissario imperiale
Future opera productions
-
20 Jun
Candide is a young and naive optimist who sets out in search of his supposedly dead sweetheart Cunegonde. His odyssey to the lost paradise... -
21 Sep
Tristan accompanies Isolde to her marriage to King Marke. But on the journey, a coincidence transforms the love that’s been simmering between them into... -
05 Nov
The passionate prima donna Floria Tosca finds herself caught up in a deadly love triangle. She falls for the charms of Cavaradossi, an artist... -
15 Dec
In 18 th -century Vienna, the Marschallin, a mature but attractive princess, arranges a marriage between her skirt-chasing nephew Baron Ochs... -
07 Feb
The outsider Otello, a successful army general, gets married in secret to his great love Desdemona. Her father categorically disapproves of their relationship. Rodrigo,... -
21 Mar
Oppressed by an impotent, rich spouse and an authoritarian father-in-law, Katerina Ismailova chooses to embark on a passionate love affair. Because of her hopeless... -
11 Apr
Bluebeard’s Castle/Winterreise is a unique combination of two great classical works, whose central theme is human loneliness. In Bartók’s only opera, the... -
11 Jun
Not one of the 2065 women who cross his path is capable of resisting Don Giovanni. Conscious of his limited time on earth, the...
