The World's Most Famous Operas — Madame Butterfly

Music by: Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)

Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in three acts, adapted from the story by John Luther Long

First produced in Milan in 1904

The Characters:

• Cio-Cio-San (Madame Butterfly)
• Lieutenant Pinkerton, of the American Navy
• Sharpless, the American consul
• Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San's handmaid
• Goro, a marriage broker
• The Bonze, Cio-Cio-San's uncle
• Prince Yamadori
• Kate Pinkerton
• Trouble, Cio-Cio-San's son

Time: about the year 1900
Place: the city of Nagasaki, in Japan.

Act One

Scene One: The garden of a Japanese house overlooking the harbor of Nagasaki.
The first strange strains of this opera carry us away to the Far East. When the curtain rises we behold the garden surrounding the house that the American officer Pinkerton has rented, standing on the slope of a hill that overlooks the harbor of Nagasaki. We see the scrawny Japanese marriage broker, Goro, showing Pinkerton over this house, which he has leased for him to live in with the bride he is offering him — a beautiful geisha girl, twenty-four years of age, named Cio-Cio-San and known in English as Madame Butterfly. After Goro presents to him the three comely maidservants he has brought — among them Suzuki, the personal handmaid of the bride-to-be — he informs him that Madame Butterfly has twenty-four kinsmen and kinswomen, all of whom will attend the wedding celebration.

At that moment there enters the American consul Sharpless, Pinkerton's friend, panting with fatigue after climbing the hill to reach this house. He has come to talk over with Pinkerton the matter of his expected marriage. From the course of the conversation it becomes plain to the consul that the young lieutenant regards the Japanese marriage contract as nothing but pleasure and jest. In vain does the consul try to persuade this frivolous, selfish officer that he must look upon the world with seriousness and sobriety. He tells him frankly at the last that this principle of his in life may be easy, and conducive to cheerfulness and comfort, but that it most often leads to sorrow and pain.

But Pinkerton pays no heed to the consul's words; he raises his glass to drink the toast of the United States, singing that the sailor goes where he pleases and does what he pleases, and repeating that the term of the house lease, like that of the marriage, is ninety-nine years — but either contract can be dissolved the moment it suits him...

Goro returns to announce the coming of the bride, Madame Butterfly, in the company of her kinsfolk and friends. While the procession slowly climbs the hill, the girls sing the joyous wedding melody, and the bride appears at the little garden gate, roses and sweet herbs in her hands, radiant with beauty, youth, and happiness.

The marriage contract is concluded in the presence of the bride's numerous relations, and toasts are drunk to the happiness of the pair. While the guests are enjoying the food and drink, the bride draws apart with her bridegroom and tells him that her family was of ancient and wealthy stock upon whom fortune turned; that her father took his own life at the Mikado's command; and that her mother is desperately poor — so poor that she herself was forced to earn her living by joining the geisha girls; but that she is now the happiest creature in the world. She asks Pinkerton whether he can guess her age, and tells him she is fifteen. Presently she draws from the wide sleeve of the kimono she is wearing a handkerchief, a mirror, and a fan; then she shows him a dagger, of which Goro whispers that it is the dagger the Emperor sent to her father, that he might kill himself with it in the manner of hara-kiri.

Suddenly the festivities are cut short by the appearance of Butterfly's uncle, a Japanese priest, angered because his brother's daughter has renounced the Japanese gods and married an American Christian. Her kinsfolk are quick to join her uncle in hurling curses and insults at her; then they hasten away, leaving Pinkerton to dry the tears of his sorrowing bride and console her.

Darkness falls, and Suzuki brings a snow-white kimono, which Butterfly puts on in place of her wedding dress. And while the fireflies flit across the garden shedding their glow, the bridal pair sing their happiness in the song "Night spreads its mantle," following it with the song "Quiet night," clasped in each other's arms — after Butterfly has murmured her fears and her agitation at marrying a foreigner. But she is happy in any case, and knows well that everything will end in a happy ending.

Act Two

Scene — a room in Butterfly's house.

Three years have passed since Butterfly's marriage to Pinkerton and her singing beneath the stars. Her husband's ship sailed away long since, and she still lives in the house he took, with her faithful servant Suzuki, and her child. Her money has run out, but she still nourishes in her soul the faith that her husband is true to her, and will return to her one day.

When the curtain rises we see Suzuki kneeling before an image of Buddha. But Butterfly refuses to pray to the Japanese gods, assuring her servant that Pinkerton will return — for he promised to return when the robins build their nests. She sings of her husband's return, saying that a day will come when the first thing they see will be a thread of smoke rising from the ocean. And she describes how Pinkerton's ship will come into the harbor, and how he will hurry to the little house on the hilltop to greet her.

At this moment the kindly American consul arrives, and with him the marriage broker Goro; the former tells her that he has received a letter from Pinkerton. Before Butterfly hears the contents of this letter she shows her delight at this vindication of her faith in her husband's return. But Goro presses her to marry anew, saying that he has brought with him a wealthy suitor named Yamadori. Butterfly refuses firmly, saying that the laws of Japan permit her to marry again, since her husband has been absent from her all this while, but that the laws of her country — America — allow no such thing at all...

After Goro and Yamadori have gone, the consul Sharpless tries to persuade her to marry the wealthy suitor. She darts from the room, and returns a moment later carrying a fair-haired, blue-eyed child, saying that she has called him "Trouble," but that she will change this name of his to "Joy" hereafter.

Sharpless sees no course but to acquaint Butterfly with the substance of Pinkerton's letter, in which it is written that Pinkerton has married an American lady; but Butterfly keeps interrupting him after every word, until the consul stops reading and takes his leave without telling her of her husband's marriage.

Thereupon Suzuki comes in dragging the broker Goro, telling her mistress that he has been loitering near the house in the hope that Butterfly might change her mind and consent to marry Yamadori; and he had said to Suzuki that a child like Butterfly's would be despised in America and cast off by everyone. Butterfly flares up and cries out at him: Liar! Liar! Then she draws her father's dagger and threatens him with it, and he scurries out — while the report of a cannon is heard from the harbor... It is Pinkerton's ship. Butterfly dances for very joy. Then she calls Suzuki and bids her fill every corner of the house with flowers, and together they sing the lovely flower song. She adorns herself, and then puts on her wedding dress.

With the coming of night, Butterfly, Suzuki, and the boy sit in silence and stillness before the window, awaiting Pinkerton's arrival, peering out through little holes in the paper screens that cover the window.

Act Three

Scene — the same room in Butterfly's house.
The three are still at their posts, watching for Pinkerton's return, after the shades of darkness have withdrawn, routed before the heralds of the luminous dawn. But Suzuki and the boy have sunk into sleep, and Butterfly alone has stayed awake. She carries the child into an inner room, crooning the tender song "Sleep, my beloved"...
Hardly has she left the hall carrying the child when Pinkerton arrives in the company of the consul Sharpless. Joy floods over Suzuki at the first moment, but the two men ask her to be calm. She catches sight of an American lady in the garden and asks who she is, and Sharpless sees no course but to tell her the truth outright... It is Pinkerton's American wife, and these two have come to adopt the child. Suzuki is struck helpless, and despair takes hold of her. Pinkerton leaves the place after a few moments, and Butterfly returns to find Sharpless, a strange American lady in the garden, and her servant Suzuki with tears in her eyes. And she grasps the dreadful truth...
Butterfly consents to give up the child, asking that Pinkerton come back to take him in half an hour. She remains alone; with perfect calm she draws her dagger and reads the words engraved upon it: "Death with honor is better than life without it."

Suzuki sends the child in to his mother Butterfly, who bids him a tender farewell that would break the hardest heart; she seats him on a little stool facing her, gives him a doll and an American flag to play with, and then binds his eyes. She takes up the dagger and disappears behind a screen. Pinkerton's voice echoes from outside, calling: "Butterfly... Butterfly!" — but too late. The sound of the dagger falling to the floor is heard, and Butterfly comes out staggering, striving to reach her child, and falls at his side. Pinkerton rushes into the room and drops to his knees before Butterfly's body, sobbing for very grief and shame — and the curtain falls slowly...