Madame Butterfly

Japanese tragedy in three acts Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica Premiere: 17.02.1904, Regio Teatro alla Scala, Milan Polish premiere: 3.12.1908, Teatr Wielki, Warsaw Premiere of this production: 29.05.1999, TW-ON Original Italian language version with Polish subtitles and audio description

Madame Butterfly, directed by Mariusz Treliński and set by Boris Kudlička, premiered more than a quarter of a century ago, in May 1999. This is an epoch-making performance. Like Emperor Mutsuhito, who modernized Japan at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Trelinski and Kudlička revolutionized the language of Polish opera. The Meiji era, when Mutsuhito ruled (1868—1912) was also the time of Madame Butterfly's action, according to the libretto — 1904. During this time, Japan had moved from the feudalism of the Tokugawa shoguns to a modern state, with a strong economy and culture. The vision of Trelinski and Kudlička is an event in the history of Polish (and not only Polish) opera of a similar scale to the Meiji era for Japan. It is their imagination and sensitivity that we owe the direction towards the communicative and universality of the language of contemporary opera directors. This show is not only the moving love story of Butterfly, not only an analysis of the meeting of two civilizations, but also a touch of cultural transformation.

The story of Cio-Cio-San is, in the work of Giacomo Puccini, one of the most beautiful operas about love. And to think that the premiere of this performance in 1904 in Milan's La Scala represented one of the most bitter life experiences of the composer. The atmosphere in the audience was hard to bear. The audience chanted: “Gypsy!!!” — accusing the author of duplicating musical fragments, she hummed, yawned demonstratively loudly. The show turned out to be a complete failure. Also, criticism did not leave a dry thread on the composer. Only after a few changes were made and staged at the Teatro Grande in Brescia, the opera ended in triumph. As many as seven passages had to be bisected and from then until today it is a position gladly placed in the repertoire of opera houses all over the world.

The Warsaw premiere of Butterfly, directed by Mariusz Treliński, repeated the success of that exhibition. The performance delighted almost everyone, including Plácido Domingo himself: “Never in my long life have I seen such a great staging of Madame Butterfly. But not only. It's one of the most beautiful performances I've ever seen in an opera...” he said in a 2006 interview with Viva magazine. And it was thanks to him that the staging of the duet Treliński — Kudlička found its way onto the stage of the Washington Opera.

The American public was also delighted. Criticism as well. The press was swarming with enthusiastic reviews. “This staging is logical and beautiful in a completely unexpected way. Probably, it is the simple decorations that most of all focus attention where they should be - the characters and Puccini's wonderful Debussy-tinged score, played and sung by the first-rate cast,” The Washington Times reported.

“Everything that appeared in this opera was so memorable that anyone who wishes to experience the extraordinary dramatic power of this staging should come here as soon as possible, before the last Saturday performance,” wrote David Patric Stearn in “The Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Mariusz Treliński and Boris Kudlička's Madame Butterfly was a great success, unprecedented in the history of this duo, which opened the way for the Warsaw opera scene to an elite group of theatres of importance in the world. It has been staged successively at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, the Israeli Opera in Tel-Aviv, the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in Sardinia and the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman.

Of all the female characters in Puccini's operas, Butterfly is best framed in psychological terms. Viewers witness her vain hope, her thoughtless cruelty, the dramatic decision she made as a result of the loss of everything that mattered to her, and her stoic resignation in the finale of the show.

Madame Butterfly is a beautiful and coherent staging with unusual, devoid of unnecessary props and cheap exotics scenography by Boris Kudlička and stylistically tasteful costumes by Magdalena Tesławska and Paweł Grabarczyk. And above all, the masterful music of Puccini, and in it the composer's ideas about Japanese melodies adapted to the harmonic system of European music. It perfectly conveys the exotic color through the use of the full-tone scale and special scales of the composer, especially in the opening bars of the symphonic prelude to the third act. Not to mention the excellent love duet at the end of the first act of Bimba dagli occhi and the beautiful aria of the delightful Cio-Cio-San: Un bel dì vedremo.

Choir and Orchestra of the Great Theatre - Operas Narodowejimowie