Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 8 p.m.

TEATRO LIRICO D’EUROPA
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
By Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Based on John Luther Long's story and David Belasco's play

Giorgio Lalov, Artistic Director/Stage Director
Krassimi Topolov, Conductor
Giorgio Lalov, Sets/Costumes
Maestro Internationale, Super Titles

DISTRIBUTION

CIO-CIO-SAN .................................... Elena Razgylyaeva

SUZUKI ............................................ Viara Zhelezova
Maid to Cio-Cio-San

B. F. PINKERTON ............................... Orlin Goranov
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy

SHARPLESS ..................................... Plamen Dimitrov
U.S. consul at Nagasaki

GORO ............................................. Gueorgui Dinev
A marriage broker.

PRINCE YAMADORI ........................... Hristo Sarafov
Rich suitor of Cio-Cio-San

THE BONZE ..................................... Vladimir Hristov
Buddhist priest and the uncle of Cio-Cio-San

KATE PINKERTON ............................. Veselina Ponorska
American wife of Pinkerton

DOLORE (SORROW) ......................... Olivia Fredericksen
Child of Cio-Cio-san and Pinkerton

Artists Biographies
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ELENA RAZGYLYAEVA (Cio-Cio-San)
The young soprano is a principal soloist of Opera Rostov-na Dom, Russia, where she performs leading soprano roles in the lyric and spinto fach. Ms. Razgylyaeva has also performed many principal soprano roles in performances of opera in central Europe, and the United Kingdom. She made her U.S. debut in winter 2006 as Mimì in Puccini’s LA BOHÈME to outstanding critical acclaim at Boston’s historic Majestic Theatre. She has had major successes in the United States in operatic performances as Michaèla in CARMEN, Cio-Cio-San in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, the title role in AÏDA, Liù in TURANDOT, Nedda in I PAGLIACCI and Donna Elvira in DON GIOVANNI.

“As Mimì (LA BOHÈME), Elena Razgylyaeva was simply outstanding. She has a glorious voice that she can modulate to the exact tone appropriate to the scene. She is one of the few to play Mimi who leave no doubt about why Rodolfo should fall in love at first sight.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD –
Christopher Hyde, April 2006

“Soprano Elena Razgylyaeva as Liù (TURANDOT) was fabulous. Her voice was of such clear purity and she sang with such immaculate phrasing, diction and superb control of her range that her two big arias didn’t seem enough! She was also a great actress…”
SCHENECTADY GAZETTE –
Geraldine Freedman, Feb 2007

The Liù of Elena Razgylyaeva was touching and rose to tragic grandeur in her Act II confrontation with Turandot.”
BOSTON GLOBE – David Perkins – Feb 2007

“Elena Razgylyaeva embodied the heroine Cio-Cio-San. Her gleaming lyrico-spinto soprano is effortlessly produced. Cio-Cio-San’s treacherously difficult entrance aria was capped by a fearless high C. A consummate singing actress, Razgylaeva turned Un bel di into a dramatic declaration of faith rather than mere vocal display. Her agitated death scene proved a final musico-dramatic tour de force. Razgylaeva encompassed the heroine's emotional spectrum in a radiant vocal palette that could ring out in fury and rhapsodize in romantic ecstasy.”
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL,
Lawrence Budmen – February 2008
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ORLIN GORANOV (B. F. Pinkerton)
A two-time GOLDEN ORPHEUS first-place winner of the International Festival in Bulgaria, Mr. Goranov is a laureate of several international opera festivals, including the DRESDEN FESTIVAL in Germany, BRATISLAVA LYRE International Slovakia Vocal Festival and the INTERTALENT FESTIVAL in Prague. He has been a principal soloist of the Sofia National Opera since 1990 and has toured with the company in the Far East and central Europe singing such roles as B. F. Pinketon in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Cavaradossi in TOSCA, Rodolfo in LA BOHÈME and Alfredo in LA TRAVIATA. Mr. Goranov has performed all of the major tenor roles in the most popular operettas throughout Europe and has participated in both the Christmas and New Year's Berliner Symphoniker concerts since 1991. Mr. Goranov has made numerous recordings for both the BULGARIAN NATIONAL RADIO and BULGARIAN NATIONAL TELEVISION. In the United States Mr. Goranov has performed in opera productions to outstanding critical acclaim.

“Tenor Orlin Goranov as Rodolfo (LA BOHÈME)…has an Italianate sound coupled with a smooth legato that could melt the heart of any soprano. The fact that he his is tall and slim also helps make him a believable young lover.”
MUSIC AND VISION DAILY, October 2009

“The tenor of Orlin Goranov (B.F. Pinkerton in MADAMA BUTTERFLY) is astoundingly melodic, powerful and emotional.”
NAPLES DAILY NEWS – Harriet Heithaus, March 08

As Pinkerton, tenor Orlin Goranov was vocally splendid. He cleaved the house with his high notes, and yet was capable of beautiful soft singing, too.”
BOSTON GLOBE – David Perkins, October 2007
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PLAMEN DIMITROV (Sharpless)
Bulgarian baritone, Plamen Dimitrov, has performed various roles with Teatro Lirico on tour in the United States during the last five seasons, including Schaunard in LA BOHÈME, Morales in CARMEN and PING in TURANDOT, Sharpless in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Giorgio Germont in LA TRAVIATA, The title role in RIGOLETTO and Escamillo in CARMEN. He also performs asa principal soloist in Bulgaria with Sofia National Opera and Opera Varna and has been a guest artist in other Eastern and Western European opera companies. Mr. Dimitrov studied at the National Academy of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria and is a laureate of several academic competitions. For five years, he worked in the Musical Theater-Sofia in the part of Charlie in CHARLIE’S AUNT and Cascada in DIE LUSTIGE WITWE.

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VLADIMIR HRISTOV (The Bonze)
Bulgarian bass Vladimir Hristov graduated from the National Academy of Music in Sofia. He has been a soloist with Teatro Lirico D'Europa on its U.S. tours since winter 2003. Mr. Hristov is also a soloist with Sofia National Opera and is a frequent guest soloist with other regional opera companies throughout Bulgaria and Eastern Europe.

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VIARA ZHELEZOVA (Suzuki):
The young Bulgarian Mezzo Soprano graduated from the National Conservatory of Music in 1985 and joined the roster of the Bulgarian National Opera, where she has performed leading mezzo-soprano roles alongside such singers as Ghena Dimitrova, Nicolai Giuselev, Anna Tomova Sintova and others. She has appeared as a guest artist with opera companies throughout Eastern Europe and has been a principal soloist with Teatro Lirico D'Europa since 1992, touring with the popular company throughout France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Denmark. In the USA Ms. Zhelezova has performed the title role of CARMEN, Suzuki in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Rosina in IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, Zerlina in DON GIOVANNI, Prince Orlofsky in DIE FLEDERMAUS and Feodor in BORIS GODOUNOV in performances of opera at major theatres to outstanding critical acclaim.

Viara Zhelezova was a strong, supportive mezzo who played the loyal Suzuki with
a blend of ferocity and wisdom.
NAPLES DAILY NEWS - Harriet Heithhaus, March 08

The smaller roles were well sung, especially Viara Zhelezova's warm-voiced Suzuki.
BOSTON GLOBE – David Perkins, October 2007

A near-capacity crowd came to be entertained Friday night at Proctors Theatre by Bizet’s “Carmen.” It was not disappointed. Almost single-handedly, mezzo-soprano Viara Zhelezova as Carmen captured the hearts of the audience and all the men on stage Carmen is one of those kinds of roles that require a singer to be as much an actress as she is a vocalist. Zhelezova inhabited the role with a brazen, feline seductiveness that spelled danger in big letters. She taunted her victims with relish and abandon. Even better, she sang to these men with an unusual degree of nuance that was almost conversational. She caressed the tones and enunciated the French words with clarity. There was no mistaking her intention.
DAILY GAZETTE – Geraldine Freeman - Feb 09

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HRISTO SARAFOV (Yamadori)
Bulgarian baritone Hristo Sarafov has been active on the stage for his entire adult life as a soloist in operetta, opera and as an actor. Mr. Sarafov graduated from the National Academy of Music in Sofia and was immediately engaged by the Sofia National Opera for the role of Bartolo in Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. He has performed numerous roles for Teatro Lirico D'Europa on tour in Europe and the United States since 1990.

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GUEORGUI DINEV (Goro)
The Bulgarian actor has worked professionally in his native country for more than 20 years, onstage as an actor, in film, and as a soloist in opera and operetta performances. He has performed secondary roles with Teatro Lirico D'Europa on tour in the United States since the winter 2000 in almost every single production.

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VESELINA PONORSKA (Kate Pinkerton)
The Bulgarian soprano who performs with opera companies throughout Bulgaria has performed various soprano roles with Teatro Lirico D'Europa on tour in Europe and the United States for the last 15 years and is a valued member of the repertory company.

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KRASSIMIR TOPOLOV (Conductor)
The young Bulgarian maestro was educated in Vienna, Austria. In addition to conducting hundreds of performances for Teatro Lirico D'Europa on tour in central Europe and the United States since 1995, he is a guest conductor with opera companies in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries.

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GIORGIO LALOV
(Artistic Director/Stage Director/Set, costumes)

Gueorgui (Giorgio) Lalov was born in Telesh, Bulgaria in June 1958. His father, "Lalo," a doctor, and his mother, Stoiyanka, an elementary school teacher and Bulgarian folk singer, were educated patrons of the arts. When Lalo Lalov died, Giorgio was only nine years old, but because he was an excellent student, he entered an elite boarding school in the capital city of Bulgaria that taught all lessons in French. When he graduated from high school in 1976, he was fluent in French and English. That fall he entered the Bulgarian National Academy of Music and went on tour throughout Italy with a choir from the university. While in Milan, he auditioned for the famous International School for Young Opera Singers at La Scala, was accepted and went on to make his operatic debut at La Scala at the age of 25.

After living in Italy for a short time, Mr. Lalov became fluent in Italian. In 1986, while on tour with an opera company in France, he met Yves Josse, a former ballet dancer who was booking opera and ballet tours. They became business partners. Mr. Lalov had many resources: He spoke several languages, was able organize the creation of sets and costumes in Bulgaria and put together an excellent orchestra and chorus. He also knew many fine opera singers in Bulgaria, central Europe and the United States.

By 1988, Messrs. Josse and Lalov were collaborating on what was to become the most successful opera touring company in Europe. At the time of Mr. Josse's death in 1995, Teatro Lirico presented over 250 performances a season throughout Europe at 180 different venues. These included performances for Opera Dijon and at other major European theatres, such Palais des Festival, (Biarritz), Théâtre Alexandre Dumas and Pavillon Baltard, (Region Paris), Théâtre de Grenoble, Théâtre Molière, (Sete), Théâtre Municipal, (St. Maur des Fosses), Théâtre de Cognac, Théâtre Municipal Armand, (Salon de Provence), Salle Pleyel, (Paris), Scene Nationale, (Cherbourg), Odyssud, (Blagnac), La Scene Municipal (Lyon) and Quartz, (Brest) in France.

Teatro Lirico performance also include those presented at l’Atrium Theatre in Martinique, Théâtre du Grand Casino (Geneve), Congresshaus, (Zurich) and Théâtre de BeauLiùe (Lausanne) in Switzerland, Théâtre Municipal (Hasselt) and Le Cirque Royale (Brussels) in Belgium. City Hall (Gotingen) and Théâtre Carre (Amsterdam) in Holland hosted other performances. Teatro also performed at Theatre Margharita, (Trapani) in Sicily, at Italian Summer Festivals such as Festival Busetto, Festival San Giovanne Valdarn, and open-air festival in such cities in Italy as Spello, Montecatini Terme, Siena., Chianciano Terme, Cortona, Aenzzo, Padova and Aimini.

Shows were also presented for Okinawa Performing Arts Center in Japan, Tivoli Gardens (Copenhagen), in Denmark, Forum Cultural Do Seixal, (Lisboa) Academia Almadense, (Lisboa), and Theatre Trinidade, (Lisboa) in Portugal, Kuppelsaal, (Hanover), Gurzenith, (Koln), CCH-I, (Hamburg,), MUK, (Lubeck), Liederhalle, (Stuttgart), Schwarzwaldhalle (Karlsruhe), and Rosengarten, (Mannheim) in Germany.

In Spain, the venerable opera company also performed at Teatro Principal, (Alicante) Teatro Municipal Cervantes (Alicante), Teatro Del Carmen, (Malaga) Palacio de Congresos. (Granada), Teatro Municipal Enrique de la Cuevca, (Seville), Teatro Atlantida VIC, (Barcelona) Salida de La Compania, (Madrid) Auditorio Ferai de Muestras (Valladolid), Gran Teatro de Burgos, Teatro Juan Bravo (Segovia), Auditorio Municpal Maestro Padillain (Almeria) Gran Teatro Galla (Cadiz), Teatro Monumental (Barcelona) Teatro Principal (Zaragoza) Teatro Cervantes, (Madrid), Teatro Victoria Eugeniain, (San Sebastian), Teatro Vicente Espinel, (Malaga), Teatro Bueno Vallejo (Madrid) Teatro Cervantes (Malaga) and Teatro “Lope de Vega” (Sevilla).

In 1990, Mr. Lalov established the Sofia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Winter 2000 marked Teatro's first major American tour. The reviews from the 11 consecutive tours Teatro Lirico D'Europa has completed thus far in the United States speak for the high quality and consistency of the company. The fact that the company is able to tour with many different productions is an indication of Mr. Lalov’s hard work, excellent organizational skills and unfailing dedication to the art of opera. In spring 2009, the impresario became the artistic director of Baltimore Opera Theatre.


More on their website HERE.

Synopsis of the Opera

ACT I
Japan, early twentieth century. On a flowering terrace above Nagasaki harbor, U.S. Navy Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker, Goro, who has just procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. To the American consul, Sharpless, who arrives breathless from climbing the hill, Pinkerton describes the carefree philosophy of a sailor roaming the world in search of pleasure. At the moment, he is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San, but his 999-year marriage contract contains a monthly renewal option. When Sharpless warns that the girl may not take her vows so lightly, Pinkerton brushes aside such scruples, saying he will one day marry a "real" American wife. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. Entering surrounded by friends, she tells Pinkerton how, when her family fell on hard times, she had to earn her living as a geisha. Her relatives bustle in, noisily expressing their opinions on the marriage. 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. Pinkerton angrily sends the guests away. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, he dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.

ACT II
Years later, Cio-Cio-San still waits for her husband's return. As Suzuki prays to her gods for aid, her mistress stands by the doorway with her eyes fixed on the harbor. When the maid shows her how little money is left, Cio-Cio-San urges her to have faith: one fine day Pinkerton's ship will appear on the horizon. Sharpless brings a letter from the lieutenant, but before he can read it to Cio-Cio-San, Goro comes with a suitor, the wealthy Prince Yamadori. The girl dismisses both marriage broker and prince, insisting her American husband has not deserted her. When they are alone, Sharpless again starts to read the letter and suggests Pinkerton may not return. Cio-Cio-San proudly carries forth her child, Sorrow (Dolore), saying that as soon as Pinkerton knows he has a son he surely will come back; if he does not, she would rather die than return to her former life. Moved by her devotion, Sharpless leaves, without having revealed the full contents of the letter. Cio-Cio-San, on the point of despair, hears a cannon report; seizing a spyglass, she discovers Pinkerton's ship entering the harbor. Now delirious with joy, she orders Suzuki to help her fill the house with flowers. As night falls, Cio-Cio-San, Suzuki and the child begin their vigil.

ACT III
As dawn breaks, Suzuki insists that Cio-Cio-San rest. Humming a lullaby to her child, she carries him to another room. Before long, Sharpless enters with Pinkerton, followed by Kate, his new wife. When Suzuki realizes who the American woman is, she collapses in despair but agrees to aid in breaking the news to her mistress. Pinkerton, seized with remorse, bids an anguished farewell to the scene of his former happiness, and then rushes away. When Cio-Cio-San comes forth expecting to find him, she finds Kate instead. Guessing the truth, the shattered Cio-Cio-San agrees to give up her child if his father will return for him. Then, sending even Suzuki away, she takes out the dagger with which her father committed suicide and bows before a statue of Buddha, choosing to die with honor rather than live in disgrace. As she raises the blade, Suzuki pushes the child into the room. Sobbing farewell, Cio-Cio-San sends him into the garden to play, then stabs herself. As she dies, Pinkerton is heard calling her name.

NOTES ON MADAMA BUTTERFLY
By Richard Dyer

Puccini’s MADAMA BUTTERFLY now stands at number one on Opera America’s list of the operas most often performed in this country – the astonishing 57 performances presented by Teatro Lirico D’Europa in the USA since winter 2003 has certainly contributed to and expanded the astonishing and paradoxical popularity of Puccini’s opera.

After all, MADAMA BUTTERFLY is in some respects an anti-American work, and contemporary productions sometimes emphasis this aspect of the piece – an aspect Puccini and his librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa went to a lot of trouble to downplay. Among other things, they toned down their initial ideas about the feckless American Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, and they turned Sharpless, the American Consul in Nagasaki, into an even more sympathetic figure.

Three of the top four operas on Opera America’s list suffered unsuccessful premieres – Verdi’s LA TRAVIATA and Bizet’s CARMEN, as well as MADAMA BUTTERFLY; only Puccini’s LA BOHEME escaped the censure of its opening-night audience. The first performance of MADAMA BUTTERFLY on February 27, 1904 was a scandal probably unmatched in operatic history. The press and the public were in foul mood because the rehearsals had been closed and Arturo Toscanini had banned encores from La Scala – a measure of success even Puccini didn’t mind. Passions may have been inflamed and even organized by partisans of a rival composer, Pietro Mascagni, who appeared before the curtain at the end to berate the audience and to shed what some people thought were crocodile tears.

The trouble began as early as Madama Butterfly’s entrance, where a bit of melody and harmony sounded a little bit too much like a bit in Act III of LA BOHEME. “We’ve heard this already,’’ people began to shout. “Give us something new!” In the second act, a gust of stage wind billowed Butterfly’s kimono forward, and there were rude cries that the soprano Rosina Storchio was pregnant with a “little Toscanini’’ – the soprano’s privileged relationship with the conductor was common knowledge. At the end of the Intermezzo that spanned Butterfly’s night vigil, bird whistles were supposed to herald the dawn and mark the end of Butterfly’s long wait. But the audience braying like donkeys, mooing like cows, and barking like dogs drowned the birdcalls out. Storchio later remembered that it was if day were breaking in Noah’s Ark.

The end of the opera was received in relative calm, afterwards there was derisive shouting and laughter, and there were no curtain calls.

The next morning, a stunned Puccini withdrew his opera from its additional scheduled performances – and in fact La Scala did not hear it again for 21 years, when it was performed on the first anniversary of the composer’s death.

Puccini revised the opera for its second production three months later in Brescia, where the opera triumphed – and there were five encores! Puccini made many changes and cuts; he reshaped and tightened the wedding sequence and eliminated roles for Butterfly’s mother and drunken Uncle, as well as toning down some of Pinkerton’s colonialist and even racist sentiments. He also divided the long second act into two parts, and composed some new music, most importantly an aria in the last scene for Pinkerton, now overcome with remorse for what he has done.

Puccini continued to tinker with his score for subsequent premieres in London and Paris – it was after the Paris premiere in 1906 that the opera was finally engraved and published, although Puccini revised a couple of phrases in that troublesome entrance for his heroine as late as 1911, seven years after the premiere. Early recordings, including some by the cast of the first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1907 (Geraldine Farrar in the title role, with Enrico Caruso as Pinkerton and Antonio Scotti as Sharpless), include bits of the earlier versions that sound strange to people who know the standard version by heart; in recent years various important productions have restored some of the music that Puccini cut, and a few have even presented the opening-night version. The composer might not have approved; he was above all a man of the theater, and he knew what worked, and what didn’t.

After TOSCA Puccini had trouble finding a subject for anew opera – he considered many options, including PELLEAS ET MELISANDE, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, a piece about the final days of Marie Antoinette, even a comedy based on Daudet’s TARTARIN DE TARASCON. None of these worked out, but in 1900 he travelled to London for the English premiere of Tosca, and while he was there, he went to see a one-act play by David Belasco, MADAME BUTTERFLY, which was on a double bill with the farce Miss Nobbs. Puccini understood no English, but he was very moved by the performance. It was probably just as well that he couldn’t understand the pidgin-English Belasco gives to his heroine. As she dies, she says, “Too bad those robins didn’ nes’ again.’’ And the speech that became the basis for Butterfly’s great aria Un bel di goes like this: “ . . .an’ sa-ey, w’en we see him comin’ quick up path – so-so-so-to look for liddle wive – me –me jus’ goin’ hide behind shoji an’ waitin’ an’ make believe me gone ‘way; leave liddle note – sayin’: ‘Goon-bye, sayonara, Butterfly.’ . . . Now he come in . . . Ah! An’ then he get angery! An’ he say all kinds of ‘Merican languages – debbils- hells! But before he get too angery, me run out an’ flew aroun’ his neck.’’

Belasco’s story that Puccini had grabbed him by the neck and asked for the rights to the play on the spot is probably exaggerated. Puccini did ask his publisher to look into the question of the rights. And he also secured an Italian translation of the magazine short-story by the Philadelphia lawyer John Luther Long that Belasco had based his play on.

The opera therefore has a dual source. In the short story Butterfly does not die, but instead disappears with her child, but Long did supply much of the material that became Act I of Puccini’s opera. The play concentrated on the last day of Butterfly’s life, and is the source of Act II. This dual source led Puccini and his librettists up some blind alleys. At one point there was to be a scene in New York – Pinkerton comes from a wealthy and socially prominent family and in the first draft of the libretto, when Sharpless inquires about his mother, Pinkerton replies, “She’s in Newport.’’ For a longer time the collaborators planned a scene in the American consulate in Japan. Butterfly has gone there to ask, again, about Pinkerton’s return, and overhears Mrs. Pinkerton sending a cable about her plans for Butterfly’s child. But as Puccini wrote to his publisher, “The Consulate was a great mistake. The action must move forward to the close without interruption, rapid, effective, terrible.’’

As scholars like the late William Ashbrook have pointed out, Puccini and his librettists gradually changed the focus from a clash-of-cultures drama – “The Star-Spangled Banner’’ and the Japanese national anthem do still appear in the score - into the human tragedy of Butterfly herself – an archetypal tragedy, that has resonated for more than a century now, and led to a host of successors, like MISS SAIGON, or ironic commentaries, like M. BUTTERFLY, or William Bolcom’s cabaret song George. It has also led to revisionist productions of Puccini’s opera; in director Ken Russell’s notorious version, Butterfly shared the stage during her vigil with a giant box of Corn Flakes as she dreamed of serving her husband and child an American breakfast.

And the opera is one of several works by Puccini that have provoked strong feminist reactions in recent years; Puccini is now often criticized for tormenting women for the delight of audiences, and his own difficult history with women has been summoned as evidence.

Most likely Puccini would have been shocked by all of this. Although he was bound to fail, he went to a lot of trouble to make his opera authentically Japanese. He studied Japanese music and incorporated five traditional melodies; one of them also appears in Gilbert & Sullivan’s MIKADO (Puccini owned a copy of the score). He talked with ambassadors’ wives, and he even arranged for a leading Japanese actress to speak to him in her native tongue, so that he could hear her inflections and translate them into Italian music. And there is no question that he loved his heroine – for the rest of his life, MADAMA BUTTERFLY remained his favorite among this operas, the only one he could sit through again and again without falling into boredom.

And in Madama Butterfly he created one of the greatest soprano roles – an encyclopedic role, like Norma. We experience Butterfly as a young girl; we share her awakening into passion, love, adulthood and wifehood; we see her as mother. We delight in her charm, her wit, her naiveté – listen to her describe an American divorce or struggle to pronounce a word like “ornithology.’” We feel the strength of her love and the depth of her despair; we ultimately watch her death with horror and compassion, but there is also something heroic about it. Puccini is at his best when writing about little people with large souls.

The part is long - once she enters, Butterfly rarely leaves the stage. The role poses considerable physical demands (European and American Butterflys, unused to constant kneeling, often hide kneepads under their kimonos). The vocal demands are even more tremendous – soaring phrases and stunning high notes (all the way up to an optional high D-flat at the close of the entrance) are only part of the picture, because so much depends on idiomatic, personal and imaginative treatment of the text, and the delivery of countless small, intimate moments that reflect every dimension of her feelings. A Butterfly cannot move us if she does not know how to inflect phrases like “Rinnegata e felice!” (“Renounced and happy!”), or “Vogliatemi bene’’ (“Love me tenderly”). Even the last line of “Un bel di’’ is important – “With firm faith I will await him’’ – although the critical word, “await,’’ is often omitted in order to summon a mega- high B-flat, even though Puccini has written in an optional octave drop off the high note as a way of making the word clear.

Puccini laid out this role with meticulous, loving care and superb craftsmanship; the result is that sopranos of every vocal weight and type have succeeded as Butterfly. Storchio, like Renata Scotto at her best, was a lyric coloratura; after the disastrous premiere, she sang Butterfly with great success for decades in other venues. Salomea Krusceniski, who took the part in Brescia, was a dramatic soprano who excelled in the heavy Verdi roles, like Leontyne Price, who became a heartbreaking Butterfly herself, although she in no way looked the part. Very rarely does a Butterfly come along who offers a convincing physical representation of the character; upholstered Western sopranos in their middle years who are obviously not teenaged Japanese geishas can break our hearts if they believe in themselves as Butterfly; that makes us believe them once the music starts.

The setting of MADAMA BUTTERFLY was quite exotic at the time it was new, and it belongs in a category of operas like Delibes’ LAKME and Meyerbeer’s L’AFRICAINE in which the heroines have gone against their religions and committed tuneful suicide when deserted by their imperialist boyfriends. Those operas are heard in occasional revivals; MADAMA BUTTERFLY is always with us. The difference, of course, is Puccini, who loved his little Japanese geisha and through her music made her child and woman, bride and wife, mother and tragic heroine.

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Richard Dyer served as chief music critic of the Boston Globe from 1973 to 2006 after completing a Master's degree and PhD at Harvard University. During his three decades at the Globe, Dyer twice won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for Distinguished Music Criticism. Along with reviews, features, columns, and news stories about music, he also wrote regularly about books and served a year as a film critic. He was frequently invited to write for other publications including the New Grove Dictionaries of Music, American Music, and Opera, the Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia of Opera, and Encyclopedia Americana. He contributed articles to Britain's Opera Magazine, Opera News, High Fidelity, The Gramophone, Musical America, and The Nation. Dyer also wrote liner notes for Sony Classical, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Westminster Classics, New World Records and RCA Victor. He was also asked to write program notes for the Metropolitan Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Opera etc.

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