Performance

Although today Madama Butterfly is counted among Giacomo Puccini’s greatest operatic hits — alongside masterpieces such as Tosca or La Bohème — its world premiere at La Scala was a disaster. The love duet in Act I was met with boos, and when Cio-Cio-San began to sing about the robins building their nests, the audience burst into such laughter that the performance was nearly stopped altogether. Today, it is perhaps the greatest melodrama in opera — a true tearjerker. The story of the young geisha, betrayed and abandoned, who cannot live without honor and so dies with it, is set to dramatic music filled with moving arias for the heroine. Although in this story not only the Japanese paper parasols but even the characters themselves may seem like paper cutouts, the very first notes of the aria Un bel dì vedremo are enough for audiences to forgive Puccini everything. He intuitively knew that the atmosphere of the Far East would work perfectly on stage, enchanting audiences with its exoticism and unique charm.