Madame Butterfly by Puccini, Du (2022/2022), Dirigé par Benedikt Arnold, Chef d'orchestre Ektoras Tartanis, Fabrice Bollon, Theater Freiburg, Freiburg, Allemagne

The contract period for the love nest in Nagasaki, which Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton has reserved for himself and his butterfly, runs for a full 999 years. He certainly won't want to stay that long. On the contrary: he hastily disappears from Butterfly's life, breaking off all contact while Butterfly is cooped up in a waiting room and mourns her illusions. When Pinkerton is gone, she sets up a flower-bedecked parallel world in which she eagerly awaits his return. Vain. She won't see Pinkerton again. Only his letter, which arrives for her after waiting more than three years. But it remains unopened. Because he could prepare the farewell that she doesn't want to accept. She would rather at least have the opportunity to return, than to learn in this way of the end of a life on which she staked everything. Butterfly broke with her old life to start a new life with Pinkerton. If Pinkerton breaks with her now, nothing will be left of her life. So she uses all her strength to deny reality: the letter must remain unread, the truth it contains must not be allowed to get out into the world – and what is written in it can be read from the face of the bearer anyway. In the end, all she has left is pain. And a dagger for ritual suicide. The intensity of the deathly pain of Butterfly surpasses everything that Giacomo Puccini has set to music so far. Madama Butterfly endured for three years, now everything is collapsing on her. Even the proud waiting room, which Puccini had at least 2 5 hours with the best opera music of the time. In the flower-strewn love nest, the composer now makes the suffering of his protagonist bluntly audible - and ends his opera on the phenomenon that we now call ghosting. The young director Benedikt Arnold comes from Generation Y, which is said to have achieved unprecedented mastery in ghosting. The forsaken stay behind. For Butterfly it's about saying goodbye to life - also about saying goodbye to her child, who is supposed to have a better future in Pinkerton's America. It will find flowers there too. Also a new mother. And probably a home too, maybe even for the next 999 years.