BY KAREN BOSSICK
“Madame Butterfly” needs no introduction.
Giacomo Puccini’s opera has become a timeless and perennial audience favorite.
See the New York Metropolitan Opera’s take on British playwright and film director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping production about cultural and sexual imperialism when Sun Valley Opera and Metropolitan Theatres presents “Madame Butterfly”—Live in HD on Saturday.
The screening will start at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Big Wood 4 Cinemas in Hailey. Doors will open at 10:15 a.m. for coffee sponsored by Hailey Coffee Company.
The opera, which premiered in 1904 at La Scala in Milan and first played at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1906, takes place in the Japanese port city of Nagasaki at the turn of the last century.
America is trying to expand its international presence even as Japan is hesitantly defining its global role. Nagasaki was one of the country’s few ports open to foreign ships at that time.
Temporary marriages with foreign sailors were not unusual. And into this backdrop steps Hui He, a doomed geisha who happily believes that her marriage to a visiting American naval officer named Pinkerston will translate into a loving and permanent marriage.
Tenor Andrea Care plays the American naval officer who marries the 15-year-old named Butterfly for convenience only to abandon her, breaking her heart. Paulo Szot plays the American consul Sharpless and Elizabeth DeShong, Butterfly’s maid Suzuki.
Pier Giorgio Morandi will conduct Puccini’s beautiful score.
COMING NEXT:
Phillip Glass’ “Akhnaten” will be screened at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 23.