Bregenz Festival: Madama Butterfly

Брегенцский фестиваль: Мадам Баттерфляй

As one of the most played operas today, Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly returns to the Seebühne for another summer. With a fine Japanese-looking piece of paper, stage designer Michael Levine created a magical platform on Lake Constance for Cio-Cio-San’s touching story. Andreas Homoki, artistic director at the Zurich Opera House, uses atmospheric video projections and Antony McDonald’s colourful costumes to stage this heartbreaking opera in the beautiful lakeside scenery. Conductor Enrique Mazzola returns as musical director.

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Actors

Cio-Cio-San

Barno Ismatullaeva

Pinkerton

Edgaras Montvidas

Suzuki

Annalisa Stroppa

Sharpless

Brian Mulligan

Crew

Conductor

Enrique Mazzola

Director

Andreas Homoki

Set designer

Michael Levine

Costume Designer

Antony McDonald

Lighting Designer

Franck Evin

About

The Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San, called Butterfly, revels in happiness when the US-American lieutenant Pinkerton marries her. Their love culminates in an enchanting duet. Soon after, however, a ship takes the soldier back home.

It is a clash of worlds and values: While Pinkerton feels free and marries an US-American woman back home, Butterfly, full of love, hope and longing, waits for his return for three long years – together with their child. Singing her famous aria “Un bel dì vedremo”, she imagines the day she and her beloved husband will be reunited. Then, however, Pinkerton returns with his US-American wife and Cio-Cio-San makes an irrevocable decision.

Special project

Bregenz Festival

TheatreHD presents a collection of performances from the annual opera festival in Bregenz, renowned for its floating stage on Lake Constance. The vast space allows for the most fantastical scenery to unfold above the water, and the set designers working on Bregenz productions traditionally give free rein to their creativity, whether it's a giant moving clown head in "Rigoletto," the vividly recreated traditional Japan of the 19th century in "Madama Butterfly," or the combination of grand video projections with intimate spaces in the rarely performed opera "Siberia" by Umberto Giordano. →