Madame Butterfly by Puccini, From (2014/2014), Directed by Daniel Benoin, Conductor Győriványi György, Anthéa, Antibes, France

l’histoire US Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton is going to marry Madame Butterfly. Sharpless, the American consul in Nagasaki disapproves of Pinkerton's whim and the levity of his behavior because the young geisha is sincerely in love with the lieutenant. She even decides to renounce the religion of her ancestors and adopt her own. For this, she will be disowned by her family. Three years have passed. Butterfly, full of hope and confidence, is still waiting for Pinkerton. She is certain that he will hasten her return… What they say Madame Butterfly is one of Puccini's last operas, a sort of bridge between La Bohème and Turandot , between the simple love story impossible due to illness and the tyrannical empress who loves in spite of herself. In Madame Butterfly , no disease or excess of power but a real conflict of cultures, a clash of civilizations. Whether the American invasion is that of the end of the 19th century, the period in which Puccini places his opera, or when the conflict becomes terrifying (1941-1945), the story is the same: a victorious American officer facing a young Japanese fascinated by the man, his bearing, his victory and ready to sacrifice everything for his forbidden happiness. I preferred to choose the Nagasaki of August 45, after the A-bomb, to that after the cannon shots of the battleship Abraham Lincoln. The tensions are stronger, the drama more extreme, the folklore less present. It is this version that I will present in Antibes with the fervor of being present on the set of Anthéa for the first time and the nervousness that this can cause. Daniel Benoin what they think It was within the framework of the drama of Nagasaki in 1945 that director Daniel Benoin transposed the story of Puccini's opera. His show is incredibly powerful. Madame Butterfly is served by a marvelous soprano, Cellia Costea, who is admirable both vocally and dramatically. in the end it is not a bomb that explodes, but bravos. André Peyregne, Nice-Matin