Organization

Conductor

Hilary Griffiths

Stage director

Igor Folwill

Costume designer

Martina Feldmann

Set designer

Jörg Brombacher

Chorus master

Sebastian Borleis

Orchestra

Kammerphilharmonie Lübeck

Eutiner Festspiele

Italian

Madama Butterfly -  (Madame Butterfly)

Eutin

Germany

Public

Madame Butterfly

Approved

MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Puccini's great opera enchants Eutin
Giacomo Puccini's “Madama Butterfly” bears the subtitle “Tragedia giapponese” - and this tragedy begins for the very young Japanese “Madama Butterfly” when she meets the American Pinkerton: It is made available to the naval officer at his accommodation near Nagasaki. The little "Lady Butterfly" feels drawn to the dashing military, but they don't really perceive her as a sentient being. For him it is an exotic adventure, it becomes the scorned and despised.

A tragic act entirely in the Greek sense, because the people have no choice - they have to follow their fate-marked path to the end. And the audience can't help but sympathize, love and suffer. Puccini's compositional skills had already cast a spell over the audience with “Madama Butterfly's” predecessors, “Tosca” and “La Bohème”. Through Puccini's intense engagement with Japanese music and the influences of Wagner's “Tristan”, “Madama Butterfly” takes on previously unknown accents. Puccini also uses quotes from other pieces that enrich his opera with subtexts for experienced listeners.

Puccini's opera premiered in Italy in 1904, a time when the economically prosperous industrialized countries felt they were far superior to the Asian region. An American in Nagasaki could therefore act like a colonial power personally. Pucchini captures this “cultural clash” by colliding two musical spheres and, in addition to references to Western listening habits, also incorporating Far Eastern sounds into the melody. This was made possible for him because he could fall back on European music collections of transcribed Japanese melodies.

Incidentally, it is not the first time that Puccini's masterpiece is on the program at the Eutin Festival: it was performed for the first time in 1999. For the 70th season in the coming summer it will enrich the repertoire of the lake stage for the second time. The staging in the original Italian version will be carried out by Prof. Igor Folwill; Hilary Griffiths is the musical director.

English

Madame Butterfly by Puccini, Sun 14 Aug 2022, From (2022/2022), Directed by Igor Folwill,, Conductor Hilary Griffiths

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

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