by In Trieste
Trieste’s Verdi opera house opened its new season on Friday with the enigmatic version of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, showing again on 2,3,5, 8 and 9 October.
While the opera’s 1904 premiere in La Scala opera house in Milan was met with grunts and sneers, last night’s final bow was accompanied by a stirring “Bravi!”, “Bravo!”, “Brava!” shouter.
The opera follows the story of the Japanese geisha Cio-cio-San, who marries a U.S. army officer, F.B. Pinkerton, for love, only to see him leave Japan, then return three years later – with an American wife. Charting a seduction, abandonment and subsequent onstage suicide of a young woman — and Puccini’s long second act- the opera defied musical conventions of the time and still speaks to the audience nowadays.
Conductor Francesco Ivan Ciampa chose to revive Puccini’s first take on the opera, in two acts rather than three, with emphasis on the aria expressing Pinkerton’s regrets at leaving the geisha.
Antonio Tosca, Verdi’s artistic director, praised Ciampa’s “accurate and emotional” rendition.
Directors Alberto Triola and Libero Stellutti said they had wanted to emphasize the clash between the real, and sometimes cruel, world represented by Pinkerton and the geisha’s fantasy one.
“Everybody knows the rules of the game except for Madama Butterfly. It’s impossible not to love her,” said il Piccolo‘s journalist, Micol Brusaferro, present at the showing.
Verdi’s box office is open Tue-Sat: 9 am – 4 pm; Sun: 9 am – 1.30 pm.
