Madama Butterfly

Lieutenant Pinkerton has fallen in love with Geisha Cio-Cio-San, known as Madame Butterfly, and wants to marry her according to Japanese custom without wanting to establish a lasting relationship. However, Butterfly really loves Pinkerton and has a child from him. She waits in vain for the lieutenant to return for years. When Pinkerton returns with his new American wife to pick up the child, Butterfly stabs himself.

Madama Butterfly goes back to a novel that supposedly depicts a true story. Since the American fleet forced the opening of Japanese ports around the middle of the 19th century, the influence of Japanese culture also began in the West. Operas and operettas were soon playing in this newly discovered country, which, despite its rapid technological progress, promised a completely different modernity by preserving its own culture. The exoticism of the milieu brought Giacomo Puccini to much more than a mere colonialist transformation of distant music: He studied sources of Japanese music, incorporated original melodies and was inspired by sophisticated instrumentation and special timbres. They make the “Japanese Tragedy” one of the most moving operas in history. Eike Gramss's production carefully depicts the clash of two cultures in a dazzling Japanese world.