Madama Butterfly

Love, betrayal, and a clash of cultures: With Madama Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini created one of the most intense operas in the repertoire. It tells the story of the geisha Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly, who, against all reason, persists in her unconditional hope for the return of her American husband, Pinkerton. The setting is the picturesque hilltop Japanese city of Nagasaki, at the time of the work's creation around 1900. Puccini masterfully combines a Far Eastern soundscape—striving for authenticity by quoting Japanese music—with universally poignant conflicts.

But the work not only explores the emotional dimension of the events surrounding a woman's abiding love for an unfaithful husband, but also critically examines the main characters' inability to reconcile the two cultural realities. Thus, Madama Butterfly becomes a social drama that reveals how Western capitalist and social principles encroached upon Japan, which until the mid-19th century had been isolated by the shoguns.

The Italian composer's music imbues the story with delicate lyricism, intimate dialogue, and rich expression. Thus, Cio-Cio-San's famous aria “Un bel dì vedremo“ became the essence of the heroine's impossible hope that her dream of a happy future will not lead to personal catastrophe. The staging of this painfully beautiful story is in the hands of co-music theater director Jasmina Hadžiahmetović.

Recommended for ages 14 and up

program

Madama Butterfly
Tragedia giapponese in drei Akten von Giacomo Puccini
Libretto von Giuseppe Giacosa und Luigi Illica (nach dem gleichnamigen Schauspiel von Davis Belasco und John Luther Long nach Longs Erzählung)
In italienischer Sprache mit deutschen Übertiteln

Place

Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck (English: Tyrolean State Theatre) is the state theatre in Innsbruck, Austria, located near the historic Altstadt (Old Town) section of the city. The theatre is surrounded by Imperial Hofburg, the Hofgarten, and SOWI Faculty of the University of Innsbruck. The main theatre has about 800 seats and the studio theatre in the basement has around 250. Plays, operas, operettas, musicals and dance theatre are performed at the theatre.