Puccini S Madama Butterfly

A comprehensive guide to Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY, featuring insightful and in depth Commentary and Analysis, a complete, newly translated Libretto with Italian/English side-by side, and over 20 music highlight examples.

Butterfly is a delicate and impressionable geisha who thinks she has married Pinkerton, a US naval officer briefly stationed in Japan. Naive and loving as she is, she does not realise that for him the marriage is a sham, an extended 'date'. It's not long before he goes away, leaving her pregnant. Still, she trusts that he will return one fine day (Un bel dì). He does, but it is not the homecoming of which Madame Butterfly dreamed: she is devastated to discover that the callous Pinkerton is now married to an American girl. Heartbroken and despairing, Butterfly commits suicide in one of the most tragic and moving climaxes in opera. In this operatic masterpiece, Puccini depicts the clash of two cultures, weaving 'The Star-spangled Banner' throughout his music. The Humming Chorus, Ah! Dolce notte! ('Oh, night of rapture'), and the Flower Song join Un bel dì in any list of favourite tunes.Written by Michael Steen, author of the acclaimed The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, 'Short Guides to Great Operas' are concise, entertaining and easy to read books about opera. Each is an opera guide packed with useful information and informed opinion, helping to make you a truly knowledgeable opera-goer, and so maximising your enjoyment of a great musical experience.Other 'Short Guides to Great Operas' that you may enjoy include those on Tosca, La Bohème and Lucia di Lammermoor.

A comprehensive new OPERA STUDY GUIDE of Puccini¿s MADAMA BUTTERFLY Opera Study Guide with Libretto, featuring Principal Characters in the Opera; Brief Story Synopsis; Story Narrative with Music Highlight Examples; Burton D. Fisher's in depth and insightful Commentary and Analysis; and a new LIBRETTO with Italian and English translation in parallel (side-by-side).

David Henry Hwang’s beautiful, heartrending play featuring an afterword by the author – winner of a 1988 Tony Award for Best Play and nominated for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize Based on a true story that stunned the world, M. Butterfly opens in the cramped prison cell where diplomat Rene Gallimard is being held captive by the French government—and by his own illusions. In the darkness of his cell he recalls a time when desire seemed to give him wings. A time when Song Liling, the beautiful Chinese diva, touched him with a love as vivid, as seductive—and as elusive—as a butterfly. How could he have known, then, that his ideal woman was, in fact, a spy for the Chinese government—and a man disguised as a woman? In a series of flashbacks, the diplomat relives the twenty-year affair from the temptation to the seduction, from its consummation to the scandal that ultimately consumed them both. But in the end, there remains only one truth: Whether or not Gallimard's passion was a flight of fancy, it sparked the most vigorous emotions of his life. Only in real life could love become so unreal. And only in such a dramatic tour de force do we learn how a fantasy can become a man's mistress—as well as his jailer. M. Butterfly is one of the most compelling, explosive, and slyly humorous dramas ever to light the Broadway stage, a work of unrivaled brilliance, illuminating the conflict between men and women, the differences between East and West, racial stereotypes—and the shadows we cast around our most cherished illusions. M. Butterfly remains one of the most influential romantic plays of contemporary literature, and in 1993 was made into a film by David Cronenberg starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone.

Madama Butterfly is one of the most popular operas of all time, despite its disastrous premiere, after which it was immediately withdrawn and revised. This guide explores how and why the libretto was softened to suit the tastes of European opera-goers, and the different variants are set out, side by side. Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann introduces the story and shows how the theme of a Japanese girl deserted by a heartless foreigner became a classic. Since John Luther Long's novella - on which the opera was based - is included as well, it is possible to judge how successful Puccini was in catching its essence in his hauntingly beautiful score.Contents: Images of the Orient, John-Pierre Lehmann; Tribulations of a Score, Julian Smith; Madame Butterfly, John Luther Long; Madama Butterfly: Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi lllica after the book by John Luther Long and the play by David Belasco; Madam Butterfly: English version based on that of R.H. Elkin