Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two acts) by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on the book by John Luther Long and the drama by David Belasco.

Criticisms

Since the 1990s, many have criticized or analyzed Madame Butterly as part of a colonialist project of creating images of Asia. These critics posit that it presents a 'feminized' view of Asia in the form of the Cio-Cio, and one that in the end of the play is discarded and inferior. One example of this critique is the postmodernist version "M. Butterfly". Many Asians and Asian-Americans resent the passive and tragic stereotyping of Asians, and view it as part of a larger racist/colonialist mentality prevalent when the opera was written.

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Other critiques center on the supposedly anti-American tone of the play, written by an Italian and presented mostly for European audiences. These critics point out that the historical basis for the American character was likely a French doctor, and that the intention of making him an "arrogant" American had more to do with Europe's anti-US sentiment in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American war in 1898. Furthermore, Japan in 1904 was not a colony of anyone, including the US, and on the contrary, had defeated Russia in the same year, during the Russo-Japanese war. Therefore the image of a colonialist America and a weak, passive Japan was possibly a projection of other European relationships (eg. Britain in China) on two third parties.

Related Topics:
Anti-American - Spanish-American - Russo-Japanese war

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Both of these critiques fit into the larger view that the play presents ignorant stereotypes of foreign lands and have more to do with idealized and romanticized images than with empirical reality. The play also inclusively categorizes the world into binaries, the Occident on the one hand and the Orient on the other, and represents the Occidental colonial power over Orienal countries. The coincidence of the play and the rise of European colonialism, to many, was not a coincidence.

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