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.

Plot

:Time: 1904.

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:Place:Nagasaki, Japan.

Related Topics:
Nagasaki - Japan

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Act I (Three Act Version)

In the first act Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln marries Cio-Cio-San (pr. Chocho-san), or Madama Butterfly, a fifteen year old Japanese geisha. Goro, a marriage-broker, has arranged the match, and has rented a little house on the hillside for them to live in. The American consul, Sharpless, a kind-hearted man, begs Pinkerton to forego this plan, because the girl believes the marriage to be binding. The lieutenant laughs at him, and the bride appears with her geisha friends, joyous and smiling. Sharpless finds that to show her trust in Pinkerton she has renounced the faith of her ancestors so that she can never return to her own people. (Butterfly: "Hear what I would tell you.") Pinkerton also learns that she is the daughter of a disgraced samurai who committed seppuku, and so the little girl was sold to be trained as geisha. The marriage contract is signed and the guests are drinking a toast to the young couple, when the bonze, a Buddhist monk, (uncle of Cio-Cio-San, and presumably having entered the monastery in disgrace after the father's seppuku) enters, uttering imprecations against her for having taken to the foreign faith, and induces her friends and relatives to abandon her. Pinkerton, annoyed, hurries the guests off, and they depart in anger. With loving words he consoles the weeping bride, and the two begin their new life happily. (Duet, Pinkerton, Butterfly: "Just like a little squirrel"; Butterfly: "But now, beloved, you are the world"; "Ah! night of rapture.")

Related Topics:
Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton - USS ''Abraham Lincoln'' - Marriage-broker - Consul - Samurai - Seppuku - Marriage contract - Bonze

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Act II

Act two begins three years later. Pinkerton's tour of duty is over, and he has returned to the United States, having promised to return "When the robins nest again." Suzuki, Butterfly's faithful servant, rightly suspects that he has abandoned them, but is upbraided for want of faith by her trusting mistress. (Butterfly: "Weeping? and why?") Meanwhile, Sharpless has been deputed by Pinkerton in a letter to tell Butterfly that he has married an American wife. Seeing her wonderful faith, the consul cannot bear to destroy it. Butterfly is so wild with delight at the sight of her lover's letter that she is unable to comprehend its contents. She believes Pinkerton is coming back in her joy refuses to listen to Yamadori, a rich suitor brought by Goro, saying that she is already married. Goro tries to explain that a wife abandoned is a wife divorced, but she declares proudly, "That may be Japanese custom, but I am now an American." Sharpless cannot move her, and at last, as if to settle all doubt, she proudly shows him her fair-haired child, saying, "Can my husband forget this?" The consul departs sadly. But Butterfly has long been a subject of gossip, and Suzuki catches the duplicitous Goro spreading more. Just as things cannot seem worse, distant guns salute the new arrival of a man-of-war, the Abraham Lincoln, Pinkerton's ship. Butterfly and Suzuki, in wild excitement, deck the house with flowers, and array themselves and the child in gala dress. All three peer through shoji doors to watch for Pinkerton's coming. As the night passes, a long orchestral pasage plays as Suzuki and the child gradually fall asleep - but Butterfly, alert and sleepless, never stirs.

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Act III

Act three opens at dawn with Butterfly still intently watching. Suzuki awakens and brings the baby to her. (Butterfly: "Sweet, thou art sleeping.") She persuades the exhausted girl to rest. Pinkerton and Sharpless arrive and tell Suzuki the terrible truth, but the lieutenant is deeply stricken with guilt and shame (Pinkerton: "Oh, the bitter fragrance of these flowers!"). Too cowardly to tell her in person, he cannot remain, but leaves the thankless task to his unfortunate wife. Suzuki, at first violently angry, is finally persuaded to listen as Sharpless tells her that Mrs. Pinkerton will care for the child if Butterfly will give him up. Butterfly appears, radiant, expecting to see Pinkerton, but is confronted instead by his new wife, Kate. She receives the truth with pathetic calmness, politely congratulates her replacement, and asks her to tell her husband that in half an hour he may have the child, and that she herself will "find peace." Then having bowed her visitors out, she is left alone. At the appointed time Pinkerton and Sharpless return to find Madam Butterfly dead by her own hand (Finale, Butterfly: "You, O beloved idol!") after having bidden farewell to her little child. She had used as a weapon her father's sword, with the inscription: "To die with honour, when one can no longer live with honour." The now-humiliated, heartbroken daughter of a disgraced samurai, she will die proudly - as a samurai.

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