MADAMA BUTTERFLY Athens 2023 Anna Sohn, Andrea Carè, Alisa Kolosova, Dionysios Sourbis
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Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Madama Butterfly
- Composer: Puccini Giacomo
- Libretto: Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens, Greece
- Recorded: June 10 2023
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Anna Sohn, Andrea Carè, Alisa Kolosova, Dionysios Sourbis. Yannis Kalyvas, Petros Magoulas, Haris Andrianos, Diamanti Kritsotaki
- Conductor: Vassilis Christopoulos
- Orchestra: Greek National Opera Orchestra
- Chorus: Greek National Opera Chorus
- Chorus Master: Agathangelos Georgakatos
- Choreographer: Daniel Izzo
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Greek National Opera, mezzo tv
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- This Recording is NOT AVAILABLE from a proper commercial or public source
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Madama Butterfly is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. Giacomo Puccini’s “Japanese tragedy” is famous for its wonderful arias, strikingly melodic music, and dramatic theatricality.
The opera tells the story of the star-crossed love harboured by the fifteen-year-old geisha Cio-Cio-San for Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the United States Navy. Following a three-year absence, the officer returns to Japan with his American wife and learns that Butterfly has given birth to his son. Cio-Cio-San agrees to give the child up but only if Pinkerton comes to see her himself – she commits suicide shortly afterwards.
For this new production of Madama Butterfly, the Greek National Opera commissioned the leading French director Olivier Py to stage the work following his enormously successful Wozzek presented inside the Stavros Niarchos Hall in 2020, and he is now returning to Greece to stage Puccini’s masterpiece, this time at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. Py –who was recently appointed Artistic Director of Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris following his much-admired nine-year stint as director of the Festival d’Avignon– has put on more than forty works of opera around the world. Now, tackling Madama Butterfly –indeed, any work of Puccini– for the first time, he is bringing the orchestra up onto the Odeon of Herodes Atticus stage and the political dimensions of Puccini’s work right to the fore, in his signature directorial style. “We hope that the power of Puccini’s political message shall be apparent in our staging, and that this incongruous work shall no longer be considered some sad and sentimental story in a saccharine setting, but rather a powerful piece of political discourse that portends the death of a world,” notes the director. The production’s impressive sets and costumes are designed by Py’s longstanding associate, Pierre-André Weitz.
Madama Butterfly never strays from the principles of verismo, with its intense clashes and love of theatrical flourishes. In this vein, the score carefully selects how best to embellish each and every moment. Orchestral influences drawn from the musical universes of Debussy and Ravel, singular elements taken from the Japanese musical tradition, striking escalations, chamber music aspects, and eruptions featuring the entire orchestra charge the opera with its particular pulsating exuberance, its unique vivacity.
An American officer acquired the services of the young geisha Miss Butterfly at an expense of 39 dollars per month. Four dollars of this bought the license that entitled her to be his mistress, and to a daily bath in the public bathhouse. He paid her 25 dollars a month and hired a room and a servant for her, which cost another ten dollars. For this sum, he enjoyed all the comforts of a married man for a set time, and she had a roof over her head and a servant at her command. On leaving for America, he promised he would return to her when the robins nest again but in fact deserted her, leaving her desperately poor, with babe in arms. The author John Luther Long was inspired by this account of a real-life young geisha called Cio-Cio-San –recounted to him by his sister, who had lived in Nagasaki– to start writing his own short story of the tale, which formed the basis for a theatre play and, subsequently, Puccini’s opera.
Quoted from GNO