Desire and despair collide on March 24th at 8:00pm and March 26th at 3:00pm, when Boheme Opera NJ presents Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Kendall Hall Theater on the campus of The College of New Jersey. Opera lives because it tells stories we all know.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever fallen for someone despite the flashing red lights and blaring sirens, or if you’ve tried to make a friend see the warning signs. If so, then you’ve experienced Madama Butterfly.
The young and innocent Cio-Cio-San, or Butterfly, falls in love with the selfish Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the US Navy.
She sees him as the love of her life. He sees her as a convenient, easily disposable fling whose innocence he can take advantage of – and flat out tells us as much.
As expected, Pinkerton abandons Butterfly in Japan to return to his “real” life in America. For three years, she maintains her love and famously sings of that “one fine day” of his return.
Friends and acquaintances try to convince her that she’s been played, but she brushes them aside just as Pinkerton did to her.
Madama Butterfly still moves us after over 100 years since its debut.
Why? Because we’re more than the audience – we’re the characters. That’s the power of the opera and of opera itself: We don’t just know the stories. We live them.
MADAMA BUTTERFLY. March 24th at 8:00pm and March 26th at 3:00pm, at Kendall Hall Theater on the campus of TCNJ. Sung in Italian with English supertitles. Stage directed by Giorgio Lalov. The Boheme Opera NJ Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Artistic Director Joseph Pucciatti. Pre-curtain talks one-hour prior. For tickets and information, visit www.bohemeopera.org.
PHOTO CAP: Ashley Bell, who plays Cio-Cio-San, or Butterfly, in Boheme Opera NJ’s production of Madama Butterfly