Madama Butterfly
Opera by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Premiered February 17, 1904 at La Scala, Milan
Last performed at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2012-2013
New production
Sung in Italian with French and English surtitles
Duration: approx. 3h with one intermission*
Cast
Musical Director Antonino Fogliani
Stage Director Barbora Horáková
Set Designer Wolfgang Menardi
Costumes Designer Eva-Maria Van Acker
Lighting Designer Felice Ross
Video creation Diana Markosian
Chorus Director Mark Biggins
Cio-Cio-San Corinne Winters (April 23, 26, 28, 30, May 3) | Heather Engebretson (April 25, 29, May 2)
Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton Stephen Costello (April 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, May 2, 3) | Arnold Rutkowski (April 29)
Sharpless Andrey Zhilikhovsky
Suzuki Kai Rüütel-Pajula
Goro Denzil Delaere
Lo zio Bonzo Mark Kurmanbayev
Kate Pinkerton Charlotte Bozzi
Yamadori Vladimir Kazakov
Chœur du Grand Théâtre de Genève
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
About
Giacomo Puccini chose the subject of his sixth opera after attending a performance of David Belasco’s single-act play, Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, in London in June 1900. This was not the first time that the composer and his two librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa had been inspired by the literature of their own time – there was also Victorien Sardou’s Tosca, for example – and this time again, in 1904, it would be a masterpiece that was born. The world’s most performed opera almost every season, its story is of a geisha who renounces everything for the love of an American marine who is passing through. If only it had been just a passing love affair!
And what if what we were seeing were just a tiny fraction of the whole? If each piece of the jigsaw only made sense with all the others? If what appeared whole and linear was just a fragment of the tapestry, and we weren’t able to distinguish the figure in the tapestry until 120 years had passed since its creation? And what would have happened if this story had been embodied by a son, such as the son accidentally born of the alliance between the geisha Cio Cio San and the marine
F. Pinkerton, caught in a time other than that of his young and passionate parents, who themselves are caught up in their daily paradoxes of decisions that they don’t know are decisive? Loving each other but incapable of foreseeing the consequences of their actions and thus building the epigenetics of the generations to come? And why so if they were merely the extras and not the protagonists of their story – a colonial story, in this case.
This story of a Madame Butterfly all in filigree sees director Barbara Horáková take her first steps on the Romande stage, with accompanying video by photographer and filmmaker Diana Markosian – who illustrated the 2024-2025 season for the Grand Théâtre –. Theirs will be an intergenerational and intercontinental double narrative of the story of Cio Cio San, caught between traditions and her own expectations, as found in the most emotional pages the composer wrote. We’re reunited with Antonino Fogliani, out favourite specialist in the Italian repertoire, who conducts an exceptional cast, starting with Corinne Winters in the lead role – known on our stages for her unforgettable interpretations of Jenufa and Kat’a Kabanova, and now a world star –, alongside her compatriot Stephen Costello, with his powerful and elegant tenor, in the role of the maladroit American soldier, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton.
