A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. Live from Valencia's iconic Palau de les Arts, the audience favourite Madama Butterfly returns with soprano Marina Rebeka and tenor Piero Pretti in the leading roles. Director Emilio López’s staging culminates in the bleak landscape of Nagasaki destroyed by the atomic bomb to evoke Puccini's early outcry against the soul-crushing spirit of colonialism.

Raina Kabaivanska, though hardly passible as a teenager, shines in the title role. Her voice and acting are stunning. Nazzareno Antinori is also a solid Pinkerton with a pleasing voice, and Eleonora Jacovic is a wonderful Suzuki. To top things off the scenery is quite well done, and the staging is effective. I can't imagine any other filmed "Butterfly" being better than this one.

Madam Butterfly is without doubt Giacomo Puccini's most beloved and performed opera, an opera that has captivated and touched the audiences of the whole world. This production was filmed in Torre del Lago, in the open-air theatre on the shores of the peaceful Tuscan lake where Puccini liked to retreat.

Poor Madame Butterfly! The 15-year-old geisha, who has renounced her family and Japanese traditions for the love of an American naval officer, finds herself abandoned in favour of a Western wife.

A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. The last of Puccini’s ‘big three’ operas, Madama Butterfly is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian sings the title role in this colourful production from the Royal Swedish Opera set amongst the glitz and kitsch of postwar Japan.

Madama Butterfly marked a new phase in Puccini’s development, in which he enriched his musical palette with the exoticism of the Far East. The fact that his direct emotionality contains a universal dimension is clear from the lasting worldwide popularity of this work. Hotel Pro Forma, known to us for their performance of Rachmaninov Troika in 2015, brings East and West together in a theatrical ritual for our time. Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, a master of the Italian repertoire, makes his La Monnaie debute.

Japan, early twentieth century. U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker. The broker, Goro, has procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. He is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. In a quiet moment, Cio-Cio-San shows her bridegroom her few earthly treasures and tells him of her intention to embrace his Christian faith. The Imperial Commissioner performs the wedding ceremony, and the guests toast the couple. The celebration is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San's uncle, a Buddhist priest, who bursts in, cursing the girl for having renounced her ancestors' religion. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, her husband dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.

The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 1985 production of Puccini's opera, set in the late nineteenth century in the city of Nagasaki, about a young Japanese woman who weds an American naval officer who later abandons her and the child she bore him.

With Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese geisha at the heart of his Madama Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini created one of the most commanding soprano roles in the operatic repertoire. In this telecast from the Live from Met series, acclaimed American soprano Catherine Malfitano rises to the challenges, traversing a wide emotional range and delivering a vocal performance that is as dramatic as it is beautiful. Tenor Richard Leech is Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, the callous American sailor who takes advantage of Cio-Cio-San’s trusting naiveté, with baritone Dwayne Croft as the stern yet compassionate U.S. consul Sharpless. Daniele Gatti takes the podium to conduct Giancarlo Del Monaco’s production, with its picturesque depiction of turn-of-the-century Japan.

Cio-Cio-San, the young Japanese bride of American naval officer Lieutenant Pinkerton, finds her romantic idyll shattered when he deserts her shortly after their marriage. She lives in hope that one day he will return.