Madama Butterfly makes its Festival debut in Annilese Miskimmon’s thought-provoking production. When an innocent young Geisha meets an American naval officer she falls instantly and deeply in love. Giving up her family and her faith, she risks all in marriage to the dashing Lieutenant Pinkerton. But her fragile happiness cannot last. Soon love turns to abandonment and betrayal, and Butterfly is forced to make one final, agonising sacrifice
A tragic love story bursting with exotic colour and memorable melodies, Puccini’s seductive score conceals a dramatic blade that cuts to the heart. Compressing ‘great grief into small souls’, as the composer himself described it, Madama Butterfly is a classic love story that never fails to move, a tragic romance that sweeps you along in the intensity of its action. Blending authentic Japanese music with luscious European harmonies and orchestration, the opera is an irresistible fusion of East and West.Puccini’s opera makes its Festival debut in Annilese Miskimmon’s thought-provoking production that updates the original turn-of-the-century setting to the 1950s, confronting the darker political and emotional currents of a work that acknowledges that there are some barriers too great for even love to conquer. A revival of the Tour 2016 production. Sung in Italian with English supertitles.
The critics view:
‘Omer Meir Wellber’s conducting... has a tremendous, slow-burning intensity that draws us relentlessly into the opera’s unsettling world’ The Guardian
‘Olga Busuioc brings gravitas to Butterfly from the first moment – serious and thoughtful, never a fragile flower’ The Stage‘
A performance of vocal beauty and heartbreaking commitment from American mezzo Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki ‘ WhatsOnStage
Enhance your experience by attending the insider talk on Sunday 3 June,
3.30pm – 4.15pm, £9.
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