Madama Butterfly
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
A new BLO production
Emerson Colonial Theatre
Thursday, September 14, 2023 | 7:30PM
Sunday, September 17, 2023 | 3PM
Friday, September 22, 2023 | 7:30PM
Sunday, September 24, 2023 | 3PM
Sung in Italian with English surtitles
Running time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one 20-minute intermission.
– The Washington Post
Amid Puccini’s lush and sweeping score, Madama Butterfly unfolds in 1940s America under the shadow of World War II. In a brand-new production from Boston Lyric Opera, wander through the nightlife of San Francisco on the eve of Pearl Harbor through the story of Butterfly, a nightclub performer contributing to the war effort, and Pinkerton, a young soldier, on the eve of his deployment. A culmination of BLO’s three-year exploration of authentic storytelling through The Butterfly Process, this production examines the experience of Japanese Americans during a critical moment in U.S. history.
Visit our special exhibit: History Comes to Life in Madama Butterfly. Learn more HERE.
Hear what people are saying about this new opera –
“Staggering…emotional and invigorating!”
“A staggering emotional experience …This ‘Butterfly’ stands strong as a poignant American tragedy.”
“An invigorating and meaningful reclamation of Puccini’s beloved opera…This show should have wings!”
– The Boston Globe
“For Phil Chan, a stage director and activist, beloved operas are durable because they can be reinterpreted to reflect our present times and values…his taut stage directions reveled in the emotional energy of the libretto and music.”
–The Arts Fuse
“Brilliant!…lends [an] urgency lacking in the original story.”
–Schmopera
“Moving…this Butterfly triumphs unequivocally in its casting.”
–Boston Classical Review
PROLOGUE
Hawaii, 1983. Two women are in the kitchen making a cake, an annual tradition. One pulls out mementos from her past to recall their previous life.
ACT I
San Francisco, 1941. B. F. Pinkerton, a young naval officer, meets his mentor Sharpless, a senior military official, at Club Shangri-La in Chinatown. In a show of gratitude for their military service, the nightclub orchestrates a nightly performance that “marries” one of the GIs to one of the club’s performers. Pinkerton, the evening’s chosen groom, is paired with Butterfly, a singer who is pretending to be Chinese to avoid discrimination due to her Japanese heritage. The festivities are interrupted by the grocer next door, Uncle Bonze, who reveals Butterfly’s true identity. The club disperses, as Pinkerton and Butterfly find themselves alone and begin to fall in love.
PRELUDE TO ACT II
Several months go by over the course of Pinkerton and Butterfly’s affair, during which the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, and West Coast Japanese Americans are taken from their homes and livelihoods to be incarcerated. Pinkerton is shipped off to war, and a pregnant Butterfly is taken to camp.
ACT II
Poston, 1944. Butterfly’s son contracts tuberculosis, and desperate for medical assistance, she holds out hope that Pinkerton will return soon to help him. Sharpless, now an incarceration camp official, returns to inform Butterfly that Pinkerton has been injured and is coming to meet his son. Before he can tell her the news of Pinkerton’s injury, Butterfly introduces Sharpless to her sick son. Sharpless promises to summon Pinkerton immediately, and Butterfly and Suzuki decorate the barracks with paper flowers, as Butterfly waits for him through the cold desert night.
ACT III
In a dream, Butterfly’s past, present, and future come together. The following morning, Pinkerton arrives to claim his son, alongside his new wife, Kate. Realizing that her son’s survival rests upon giving him to Pinkerton and Kate, Butterfly agrees, only to find it is too late.
Vera Savage
Kate Pinkerton
Emerson Colonial Theatre
106 Boylston Street | Boston, MA 02116
BLO hosted six public discussions throughout the 2021/22 Season, hosted and moderated by Phil Chan, co-founder and author of Final Bow for Yellowface, who also served as a partner in developing and facilitating this series. These discussions explore issues tied to the historical impact and current producing realities of Madama Butterfly. Though conversation with featured speakers and members of BLO’s previously planned Butterfly cast, Phil guides each conversation with to contextualize each theme and frame a community discussion. We invite you to explore these conversations below.
The Birth of Butterfly through WWII: The First 50 Years focuses on the essential questions to ground us in the work of Madama Butterfly, including the socio-political context during the time of its premiere and how that changed during and after World War II. Dr. Kunio Hara, a preeminent Puccini scholar is in diologue with Phil Chan and BLO artists to contextualize these themes to frame a community discussion.
Featured Speaker Kunio Hara
Orientalism & Cultural Appropriation focuses on learning and engaging with how Orientalism has influenced Western European Art and by extension, how Eurocentric art—and Madama Butterfly specifically—has defined, perpetuated, and reinforced particular and narrow attitudes about AAPI people and cultures
Featured Speakers Mari Yoshihara, Michael Sakamoto, Josephine Lee, Huang Ruo
The Impact on Artists & Audiences centers the experience of opera artists and explores the complex, sometimes conflicting relationship many have to Madama Butterfly, both as a gateway to opera and a work that has typecast many AAPI singers. Artists will explore ways in which opera productions can be more inclusive and multicultural. Phil Chan guides a conversation in a Town Hall format hosted by the Boston Public Library as part of their Racial Equity and Recovery Initiative.
Featured Speakers Melanie Bacaling, Eiji Miura, Todd McNeel Jr., Wynne Szeto
Symbolism & Archetypes of Women explores the cultural context of geisha in Japan as it relates to the character of Cio–Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, and how depictions of this character have perpetuated sexualized stereotypes of Asian and AAPI women in American culture.
Featured Speakers Teiya Kasahara, Yunah Lee, and Giselle Ty
The Casting the Roles discussion session unpacks the nuances within ongoing industry conversations about appropriate casting and performance practices. Constructive dialogue explores culturally sensitive, inclusive, and responsive practices that center the story being told, who is telling the story, and who makes up the audience.
Featured Speakers Priti Gandhi, David Henry Hwang, Benjamin Makino, Douglas Sumi
Learning & Sharing we share with our community and the industry what we learned and where we are going from here—both specifically for the opera Madama Butterfly and more broadly, outlining action and steps BLO is taking to become a multiracial opera company. Phil Chan will lead the conversation with BLO leaders, leadership from New Orleans Opera, a partner in this discussion series, and artists to reflect and respond to this process. This wrap-up be live streamed from Boston Lyric Opera’s space at the Midway Artist Studios in Fort Point and the audience will be able to attend virtually.
With Jessica Johnson Brock, Clare Burovac, Anne M. Morgan, Nina Yoshida Nelson, and Bradley Vernatter
“Phil Chan, who is directing the production in Boston and has helped lead the push to confront stereotypes in opera and ballet, said he hoped to make familiar stories more authentic and relevant. The creative team in Boston includes Nina Yoshida Nelsen, a founder of the Asian Opera Alliance, which was formed in 2021 to help bring more racial diversity to the field.”
– The New York Times
July 24, 2023
“Among many current efforts at a positive alteration of the story, Boston Lyric Opera is scoring a first by having a more mature and self-assured Cio-Cio-San who lives not in Japan but in San Francisco’s Chinatown.”
– San Francisco Classical Voice
August 15, 2023
“BLO took an unprecedented step…preserving the classic in a new context”
“It’s about finding a new way to tell this story with a little bit more nuance, and something that addresses an American story without changing the Puccini music,”
“It’s my hope that after someone sees this story, they’ll…see each other with more nuance and more empathy.”
– Nikkei View / JACL National
September 6, 2023
“Chan was illustrating what he called his “creative North Star — the question I ask in whatever I do: What else could it be?”
– The Boston Globe
September 8, 2023
A new take on “Madama Butterfly” updates Puccini’s opera for modern times – Nikkei View/JACL National
Opera Preview: Expanding “Butterfly’s” Habitat – The Arts Fuse
Classical Music and Opera This Fall: Programs, Premieres and More – New York Times
Wartime San Francisco Is Setting for Boston Butterfly – San Francisco Classical Voice
Reimagining ‘Madame Butterfly,’ With Asian Creators at the Helm – New York Times
A new ‘Butterfly’ emerges from the BLO – The Boston Globe
