Madama Butterfly, an opera about love and loss

Madam Butterfly It is an incredible opera about love and devotion, which also addresses the profound social problems caused by World War II.. The opera stars an abusive American Army officer and an innocent young Japanese woman.

This opera is one of the most gruesome pieces in the Western operatic repertoire. So, Madam Butterfly has been surprising its viewers for more than a century with an incredible plot and exceptional music.

Premiered in 1904, Madama Butterfly is an opera by the great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Follow the story of Pinkerton, an American officer in Nagasaki. With the help of an unscrupulous pimp, they will trick XioXio San into temporarily joining Pinkerton.

The officer leaves shortly after, leaving XioXio San alone and pregnant.. For three years, the young woman raises her son waiting for the return of her love. For her part, Pinkerton only told lies to the young woman: he never thought of really marrying her, nor of looking for her again to take her to America.

This way, when he eventually returns, Pinkerton is with his ‘real’ American wife, Kate.. Filled with grief, Butterfly gives her son to Pinkerton in the hopes that he will be taken to the United States and grow up with more opportunities. The rest is history, the tragedy is chewed and the viewer cannot help but feel the pain and agony that the work evokes.

Butterfly mourns the loss of Pinkerton

In a final scene, full of drama and grief, Butterfly commits suicide.. He cannot bear Pinkerton’s betrayal and the separation of his son.

Moving, uncomfortable, tragic and painful, Madama Butterfly is one of the operas that has best survived the passage of time, although it was not always seen with the same eyes. How can we understand this opera today? How has the vision of the work changed over time?

A look at the Madama Butterfly script

Beyond the beauty of the music, Madama Butterfly is a story of desolation and deception. The public at the time received her with boos and ridicule: they considered XioXio’s behavior reprehensible.

The public thought Butterfly was a sexual libertine, and they considered her pain as just retribution for their sins.. However, Puccini clearly established from the first act that XioXio was innocent, that she had been the victim of a deception, and that she believed she was legally married to Pinkerton.

Puccini developed the character of Pinkerton as the villain of the story. The composer made an effort to show how Pinkerton seduces and deceives the little girl in order to abuse her.

After World War II, many American soldiers brought their foreign wives to live in the United States. In this way, many Japanese women hoped to leave for the new continent with the hope of a new life.

Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York

In this context, XioXio appears as a poor young woman, who joins an American in the hope of having a future.. Pinkerton, the evil foreign officer character, personifies all the men who abuse his position of power.

During the second act, now ‘married’, XioXio and Pinkerton must separate. Pinkerton is going to return to America with the rest of his troop. As a result, Butterfly is devastated, but Pinkerton promises her that he will come back for her.

In one of the most beautiful arias in the history of opera, we hear Butterfly explaining to her maid what will happen when Pinkerton returns for her. Puccini transforms the young woman’s pain into an iconic piece of academic music.

At the end of the opera, after seeing his son leave, XioXio’s heart is broken. So, full of pain, XioXio takes her own life through a Japanese sacrificial ritual.

Adaptations to other media

The pain of Madam Butterfly has inspired countless artists over the years. Among the most popular adaptations of Puccini’s libretto, we find Miss Saigon by Boublil and Schönberg.

Perhaps one of the most curious adaptations of the magnificent opera has been that of Sidney Olcott. The first adaptation of Madame Butterfly to film was a silent film. This is incredibly ironic considering that much of the beauty of the story lies in its musicalization.

In the world of pop music, many artists have made tributes to Madam Butterfly. From the Sex Pistols to the band indie Wheezer. The various interpretations and adaptations reinvent the characters and are an example of the undoubted legacy of Puccini’s work and how, over time, it has survived and remains current.

In literature, various graphic novels inspired by this story have appeared.. Some of them vindicate Pinkerton’s character and turn him into a misunderstood man. Other versions delve into Butterfly’s abusive situation and the injustice of her fate.

What makes Madama Butterfly such a moving story? Perhaps, it is the classical tragedy immersed in its history or the immortality of its music.

Throughout the opera, the audience can sense lust and love, the need to blindly believe in some ideas, the beauty in sacrifice and death. Thus, Madama Butterfly seems like a tragedy worthy of the classical era, a poetry that merges music and scene.

To finish, we are left with the own words of its author, Puccini, who was always very clear when explaining what makes this one of the greatest operas in history:

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