40 Fun Facts About Madama Butterfly

In which Japanese port city does Puccini set Madama Butterfly, in a hillside house overlooking the harbour?

Nagasaki still marks the link: statues of Puccini and the soprano Tamaki Miura, a famous Cio-Cio-San, stand in its hillside Glover Garden.

Which 1989 hit musical by the creators of Les Misérables retells the story of Puccini's Madama Butterfly?

Miss Saigon moves the tale to the Vietnam War, trading the sailor and his bride for a United States Marine and a Vietnamese bargirl.

Which American rock band named its 1996 album Pinkerton after the faithless sailor in Puccini's Madama Butterfly?

Weezer's singer Rivers Cuomo listened to the opera every night after shows, and its sadness pushed him toward a darker second album.

Why did New York's Metropolitan Opera keep Madama Butterfly off its stage from 1942 through 1945?

War with Japan took the opera off the bill; otherwise it has been heard in virtually every Met season since Puccini supervised its first staging there in 1907.

Which patriotic American tune does Puccini quote in Madama Butterfly when Pinkerton raises a toast to his homeland?

The Star-Spangled Banner rings out as Pinkerton and the consul drink to America, a musical badge Puccini pins on his American characters.

Whose dagger does Cio-Cio-San use to end her own life in the final scene of Puccini's Madama Butterfly?

Her father's blade came from the emperor with an invitation to kill himself, and he obeyed; she keeps it in a narrow box she will not open for Pinkerton.

What does Cio-Cio-San place in her young son's hands just before her death at the end of Madama Butterfly?

An American flag goes into the boy's hands after she blindfolds him, and she then steps behind a screen to die as Pinkerton rushes in too late.

Which famous Act 2 aria does Cio-Cio-San sing in Madama Butterfly as she imagines Pinkerton's ship sailing home?

Un bel dì, vedremo pictures a thread of smoke on the horizon and a white ship entering the harbour, a reunion that never arrives the way she dreams it.

Which famous opera house staged the very first performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly on 17 February 1904?

La Scala heard the opera only once in that form: the Milan audience booed and hissed so much that Puccini withdrew the score after opening night.

How does Cio-Cio-San earn her living before her wedding in Madama Butterfly, after her noble family loses its fortune?

As a geisha she supported herself once the family money was gone; at fifteen, she tells the two Americans, she already counts as old.

Which famous piece of music accompanies Cio-Cio-San's all-night vigil as she waits for Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly?

Humming Chorus voices sing without words as Suzuki and the child fall asleep, leaving Cio-Cio-San alone and awake until morning.

Why does the Bonze burst into Cio-Cio-San's wedding party in Madama Butterfly and turn her relatives against her?

She became a Christian in secret at the mission the day before, wanting to pray to the same god as Pinkerton; the Bonze calls it an abomination.

Why does Cio-Cio-San turn down the wealthy Prince Yamadori's proposal in Act 2 of Madama Butterfly?

She says she is married already; told that Japanese law treats a deserted woman as divorced, she answers that only American law binds her.

Who arrives with Pinkerton in Act 3 of Madama Butterfly, hoping to raise Cio-Cio-San's child?

His American wife, Kate, has agreed to bring the boy up, and Pinkerton leaves her and the consul to break the news because he cannot face Cio-Cio-San.

Which superstar tenor sang Pinkerton when the Metropolitan Opera first staged Madama Butterfly in 1907?

Enrico Caruso sang opposite Geraldine Farrar with Puccini supervising, yet the composer wrote that his leading man was lazy and too pleased with himself.

Puccini was moved by the play Madame Butterfly in London in 1900 despite which obstacle?

He barely knew English, yet the heroine's night-long vigil struck him as ideal for an opera; by the producer's own later account, he hurried backstage to beg for the rights.

Puccini first saw the play Madame Butterfly while in London to supervise the British premiere of which of his operas?

Tosca brought him to London in the summer of 1900, and the one-act play he saw at the Duke of York's Theatre there gave him the subject of his next opera.

Which American playwright and producer staged the one-act play Madame Butterfly in New York in 1900?

David Belasco gave Puccini two operas: his Western drama The Girl of the Golden West became La fanciulla del West in 1910.

John Luther Long, who wrote the 1898 short story Madame Butterfly, earned his living in which profession?

Lawyer John Luther Long drew the tale from the recollections of his sister Jennie Correll, who had lived in Japan with her missionary husband.

What major change did Puccini make to Madama Butterfly after its disastrous first night in Milan?

He split Act 2 in two because the first night ran its long second half with no interval; the new break falls during the all-night vigil.

Which northern Italian city hosted the triumphant revised version of Madama Butterfly on 28 May 1904?

Brescia cheered the new version just three months after Milan had jeered the original, and the opera's success grew from there.

Solomiya Krushelnytska, the soprano who rescued Madama Butterfly at its 1904 revival, was of which nationality?

Ukrainian diva Krushelnytska sang the revised title role, and Puccini later gave her his portrait inscribed to the most beautiful and charming Butterfly.

Which celebrated conductor led Madama Butterfly's first performance outside Italy, in Buenos Aires in July 1904?

Arturo Toscanini took the opera to Argentina with the same soprano who had endured the Milan fiasco a few months earlier.

How did the audience at Madama Butterfly's 1904 premiere respond when bird whistles sounded during the sunrise scene?

With animal noises of their own: nightingale whistles had been handed to planted audience members to deepen the dawn, and the house took them as a cue.

Which American president gives his name to Pinkerton's ship, sighted in the harbour in Act 2 of Madama Butterfly?

Abraham Lincoln is the ship Cio-Cio-San picks out with her telescope, and she and Suzuki fill the house with flowers before settling down to wait.

Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly shares his first and middle names with which signer of the Declaration of Independence?

Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton is the name read out at the wedding, though at the first performances he was introduced as Sir Francis Blummy Pinkerton.

Pinkerton's house lease in Madama Butterfly can be cancelled any month, but for what term does it officially run?

999 years is the term of the lease and, Pinkerton boasts, of his marriage contract too, each with the option to cancel every month.

What name does Cio-Cio-San give her son in Madama Butterfly, where John Luther Long's story called him Trouble?

Sorrow, Dolore in the libretto, is meant to be temporary: she says the boy will be renamed Joy on the day Pinkerton comes back.

Pinkerton promises Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly that he will return in the season when which birds build their nests?

Robins nesting in spring was his promise; three years on, Cio-Cio-San and Suzuki are close to destitution and he has still not come.

What is the trade of Goro, who opens Madama Butterfly by showing Pinkerton around his new house?

Marriage broker Goro arranged Pinkerton's match, and three years later he keeps trying to marry Cio-Cio-San off again to a rich suitor.

Pinkerton mistakes Cio-Cio-San's small figures for dolls in Madama Butterfly, but what do they represent to her?

Her ancestors' souls, the hotoke, arrive among her few trinkets, and moments later she tells Pinkerton she would give up her whole family for him.

What sound from the harbour tells Cio-Cio-San in Act 2 of Madama Butterfly that a ship has arrived?

A cannon shot from the port announces the ship, and the music that follows as the house is decorated is often known as the Flower Duet.

Cio-Cio-San agrees to give up her son in Madama Butterfly, but only on what condition?

Pinkerton must come himself, she says, and return in half an hour; by the time he rushes in she has used the dagger behind a screen.

Which French author wrote Madame Chrysanthème, the 1887 novel that fed into the Madame Butterfly story?

Pierre Loti, a naval officer, thinly disguised himself in the book, and so much of its plot reappears in the later story that it is assumed to be a source.

Which playwright polished Luigi Illica's drafts into verse for the librettos of La bohème and Madama Butterfly?

Giuseppe Giacosa turned Illica's plot and dialogue into verses; in his own lifetime he was prized as a dramatist, especially in Germany and Austria.

Which silent-film superstar played the title role in the 1915 screen version of Madame Butterfly?

Mary Pickford reportedly fought constantly with director Sidney Olcott, who thought her too Americanized to play a Japanese heroine.

Which future Hollywood legend played Pinkerton opposite Sylvia Sidney in Paramount's 1932 film Madame Butterfly?

Cary Grant sings no Puccini here: the 1932 film is a spoken drama, though much of its background score is adapted from the opera.

Which actress took her first leading role in The Toll of the Sea, a 1922 film that reworked Madama Butterfly?

Anna May Wong played Lotus Flower in a version moved to China: she rescues an American from the sea, marries him and is left behind when he goes home.

Which British pop impresario reached number 13 in the UK in 1984 with a single built on Madama Butterfly?

Malcolm McLaren, once the Sex Pistols' manager, set Cio-Cio-San's best-known aria over 1980s R&B for his album Fans.

Which playwright drew on Madama Butterfly and a French diplomat's real love affair for the 1988 play M. Butterfly?

David Henry Hwang took the story of Bernard Boursicot and the Beijing opera singer Shi Pei Pu, and Cronenberg turned the play into a 1993 film.