Madame Butterfly / YMMV

Adaptation Displacement: Madame Butterfly started its existence as a short story by John Luther Long, inspired both by stories his sister had written to him about life in Japan and Pierre Loti's semi-autobiographical novel Madame Chrysanthème. It was then adapted into a play by David Belasco. Both of these were quite successful in their day, but today the opera is one of the most famous examples of the genre and has totally overshadowed its predecessors. The tragic ending of Butterfly committing suicide is more famous, even though it's an invention of the opera, and Butterfly survives the short story.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Pretty much any production with have its own take on how sorry Pinkerton really is, particularly his My God, What Have I Done? moment. Sometimes he's genuinely remorseful, others he's complaining about the pain and guilt he and only he feels, and some have anything in between. A lot of it depends on the translation being used.
- Did Butterfly ask for Pinkerton to come to get his son in half an hour simply so she'd have the chance to see him one more time before she killed herself? Or did she do it as a Spiteful Suicide to punish him for dashing all her hopes and ruining her life, letting him be confronted with her bleeding corpse? The ominous leitmotif of death, played by the full orchestra as Pinkerton runs in and sees Butterfly's corpse, suggests the latter: he will be forever traumatized by the sight, knowing he was the reason of it.
- Since Kate has only several lines, her character's portrayal largely depends on the production. It ranges from her being perfectly indifferent to Butterfly's suffering and only asking for forgiveness and saying "Poor thing" for the sake of empty politeness – to her completely breaking down and going into hysterics. Her line about Butterfly giving her the child can be interpreted as either "Well, I will get the child, though, right?" or "Now the poor woman will lose her son as well!". Or something in-between, too. Her counterpart in the short story was the former.
Awesome Music:
- This opera is suffused with sumptuous, powerful music. A great bonus is that Puccini, anxious for authenticity in the music, delved deep into traditional Japanese melodies, peppering them throughout the otherwise very Italian music and many times incorporating them directly into the musical line. It paid off and the result is not only music that "sounds" Eastern, but a lot of music that is genuinely Japanese.
- Highlights of the score include Butterfly's breathtakingly ethereal entrance "Ancora un passo or via", the love duet "Viene la sera", Butterfly's main and most famous aria "Un bel di vedremo", and the "Humming Chorus", which is so tender and touching that it inspired another great song - "Bring Him Home."
Fair for Its Day:
- Nowadays, the play gets criticism for codifying the stereotype of Asian women as fragile and nothing without their Western men, but in its time it was meant to condemn Western imperialism in the East via making Butterfly a victim of Pinkerton's thoughtlessness and jerkassery.
- There’s also some additional Values Dissonance to this. Butterfly was also slotted into the Western literary position of the Tragic Female, who is traditionally either helpless (Ophelia) or twisted (Lady Macbeth) as opposed to the Comedic Female (spunky like Rosalind) or Epic Female (strong and noble like Eowyn).
- Sharpless, a lot like the modern audiences, reacts with shock as he learns Butterfly is only fifteen years old on the wedding day.
Sharpless (with indignation): Fifteen years?!
Pinkerton (nonchalantly): Fifteen years.
Sharpless: An age for playing.
Fridge Logic: How did Sharpless not already know Butterfly had given birth to Pinkerton's son? He's presumably been keeping an eye on her in the interim three years, but missed that huge detail?
Harsher in Hindsight: Puccini wrote the opera in part to criticize America and the West's treatment of Japan, no doubt having things like Admiral Perry's forcible opening of Japan to trade in mind. But the theme resounds much more strongly to modern ears when you consider the opera is set in Nagasaki.
- To make matters worse, the opera itself was banished from the Metropolitan Opera after the United States declared war on Japan in 1941; it stayed out of the Met repertory for the rest of World War II.
Les Yay: Out of context, The Flower Duet can come across as a love song (this gets lampshaded in The Hunger) due to the closeness between Butterfly and Suzuki.
Tear Jerker: Definitely.
Values Dissonance: While the opera was really progressive for the time, it's hard to get over the fact that a fifteen year old marrying an older marine and having his baby was portrayed as completely normal.

YMMV / Madame Butterfly

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