Opera Cio-cio-san (Madama Butterfly) opera in three acts St. Petersburg Chamber Opera
Schedule for Cio-cio-san (Madama Butterfly) opera in three acts 2022
Composer: Giacomo Puccini Stage Director: Yuri Alexandrov Orchestra: Symphony Orchestra of the 'St. Petersburg Opera' theatre
World premiere: 17 February 1904, La Scalal, Milan, Italy
Stage version and production by
YURI ALEXANDROV
“I would never stage Madama Butterfly today if the story did not disturb me so much, tormenting me and tearing me to pieces. This mental carbuncle constantly aches, it burns, it affects every cell in the body. Human pain is not limited by time or geography, it is independent of nationality and social status. The English version of the tragic love of Lucretia, the French story of La traviata and the Japanese Butterfly are united in my eyes by the suffering and despair of Woman.
“In our production of Madama Butterfly the action unfolds in Japan just after the war, after the horrendous events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have placed the characters in a more ruthless era and tried to remove the element of decorativeness from the opera – a minimum of sets and a minimum of props. The stage is thus naked, undressed, just like people living in a poor and hungry age. Nothing is superfluous, nothing distracts the attention. Just Man in fatal loneliness and all-consuming Pain.
“I see Pinkerton’s love of Butterfly as something like humanitarian aid from the USA. These relations are monstrous. And, ultimately, the moral explosion is stronger and more terrifying than the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Yuri ALEXANDROV
Schedule for Cio-cio-san (Madama Butterfly) opera in three acts 2022
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