Nagasaki, Japan, at the turn of the last century: the fifteen-year-old geisha Cio-Cio-San (from the Japanese word for ’butterfly’) renounces her religion and her family in order to enter into a temporary marriage arrangement with Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an Americal naval officer. Despite his promises, he leaves her, only to return three years later and try to take her child back to America with him and his new wife. Butterfly, in despair, commits suicide with her father’s sword.
One of the masterpieces of the genre, Puccini’s opera, with its highly sophisticated depiction of human emotion, was premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in 1904. In the famous Anthony Minghella production at the Met, legendary tenor Plácido Domingo makes his role debut as Sharpless, the US Consul (a baritone role).
Pre-recorded broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, New York
With the support of the Antenna Group
In collaboration with the Athens and Thessaloniki Concert Halls
A production of the Antenna Group
In Italian, with Greek subtitles