Madame Butterfly by Puccini, la 11 maalis 2023, Alkaen (2023/2023), Ohjannut Robert Annus,, Musiikinjohto Risto Joost, Martin Sildos, Theatre Vanemuine, Tartu, Estonia

One of Puccini's most beautiful operas, Madama Butterfly, premiered on February 17, 1904 at Milan's La Scala theater. In a small cabin near Nagasaki, American Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton and a geisha Chōchō-san, nicknamed Butterfly, get married. Pinkerton pokes fun at the ancient Japanese customs of marriage for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Although he likes Butterfly, the man plans to take a new wife in his homeland and tie himself to an American woman. But for Butterfly, a man is her whole world... I liked the moral ambivalence of Annus' production language, the reluctance to dictate judgments to the viewer in poster fashion. In his vision, the conflict of this drama and the cause of the subsequent tragedy seem to lie not so much in unrequited, abandoned or forbidden love (as is usual in operas), but in the norms and taboos set by the surrounding cultural space.