Puccini classic soars high at opera festival

The next big production in The Opera Festival of the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) is Puccini's Madama Butterfly by the prestigious Teatro La Fenice. Daniele Abbado, son of the renowned Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, will take the baton and Chinese soprano Zhang Liping will play the title role.

Based on tragic events that actually occurred in Nagasaki in the early 1890s, Madama Butterfly was adapted into opera by Puccini in 1904 and is one of the most frequently produced operas today. The plot is a simple one. A young geisha Cio Cio San falls in love with a US captain Pinkerton and has a son with him. Pinkerton returns to the US without her. Cio Cio San brings up the boy alone and waits for Pinkerton's return. But the poor woman only sees her once-beloved husband back with a new wife. The heart-broken Cio Cio San commits suicide.

Different from many operas, it is intimate, devoid of spectacle, taking place completely within a house in Nagasaki. In this version, stage designer Graziano Gregori makes the house a simple white box, to imply that Cio Cio San is imprisoned in her tragic destiny.