Madama Butterfly

Few operas have brought so many tears to the eyes. Yet the premiere was a fiasco at La Scala in Milan.

Sure of himself, Puccini reacted: "Ma Butterfly is the most heartfelt, the most expressive opera I have ever conceived." The future proved him right. This (true) story of a Japanese teenager seduced and abandoned has earned its letters of nobility thanks to Puccini's refined music. Madame Butterfly is as much a tragedy as it is a study in manners, as it is the long death of a young girl...