Giacomo Puccini, Madame Butterfly (1904)

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The poster for the world premiere of Madama Butterfly. Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.

Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, derived from a play by the American author David Belasco, has a disturbingly true-to-life story. In the wake of the opening of Japan to trade with the United States in the 1850s, a cynical young naval officer, Lieutenant Pinkerton, marries a naïve fifteen-year-old geisha, Cho-Cho-San, whom he calls “Madame Butterfly.” He then sails away with no intention of honoring the Japanese ceremony. Cho-Cho-San persists against all evidence in hoping he will return; but when he eventually does, he brings his “real” American wife with him, and Cho-Cho-San, now mother of Pinkerton’s child, kills herself.

During Act II, in response to her maid’s doubts, Cho-Cho-San sings the opera’s most famous number, “Un bel dì,” spinning a fantasy about Pinkerton’s return. From the hills (she imagines) they will first see a little wisp of smoke, as the gunboat appears on the horizon. She sings this vision to a memorable melody that has a floating, disembodied quality in keeping with the fantasy it portrays — partly because it begins high in the soprano’s range and slowly descends, partly because of its delicate orchestration.

After this melody, the aria takes on a freer formal cast. Cho-Cho-San sings varied music that mixes full-fledged melody (at “Poi la nave bianca . . .”) with something closer to a recitative-like declamation (at “Mi metto là sul ciglio . . .”).

But when she comes in her fantasy to the moment of remeeting Pinkerton (“Per non morire . . .”), she sings her heart out to a reprise of the aria’s opening melody, now louder and with redoubled, brass orchestration. It is a stroke of almost unbearable pathos, for it dramatizes the helpless growth of her fantasy. Originally linked to the hope that Pinkerton’s ship would return, now the main melody expresses her joy at his reunion with her — which is sheer delusion. Puccini underscores the pathos when, at Cho-Cho-San’s last words, the orchestra takes up the intensified melody once more to end the aria.

LISTEN

Puccini, Madame Butterfly, Aria “Un bel dì” from Act II

0:00 Un bel dì, vedremo

levarsi un fil di fumo

sull’estremo confin del mare;

e poi la nave appare.

One beautiful day, we’ll see

a tiny thread of smoke rise up

on the horizon, out at sea;

then the ship appears.

0:38 Poi la nave bianca entra nel porto;

romba il suo saluto. Vedi? È venuto!

Io non gli scendo incontro — io no;

Now the white ship sails into port;

cannons roar a welcome. See? He has come!

I don’t run to meet him — not I;

1:24 mi metto là sul ciglio del colle,

e aspetto, e aspetto gran tempo,

e non mi pesa la lunga attesa.

I go to the brow of the hill

and wait, and wait a long time,

but the long wait doesn’t bother me.

1:49 E uscito dalla folla cittadina

un uomo, un picciol punto,

s’avvia per la collina.

Out of the crowd down in the city

a man, a tiny speck,

sets out up the hill.

2:18 Chi sarà, chi sarà? E come sarà giunto,

che dirà, che dirà?

Chiamerà: “Butterfly” dalla lontana . . .

Io senza dar risposta

me ne starò nascosta

un po’ per celia, e un po’

Who is it? Who is it? And as he comes,

what will he say? what will he say?

He’ll call out: “Butterfly” from afar . . .

Without answering

I’ll hide myself,

partly to tease him, and partly

2:56 per non morire al primo incontro!

Ed egli alquanto in pena chiamerà,

chiamerà: “Piccina mogliettina,

Olezza di verbena” —

i nomi che mi dava al suo venire.

so as not to die when we first meet!

And then he’ll be worried and call:

“Little child-wife!

Verbena blossom!” —

the names he gave me when he first came.

3:40 Tutto questo averrà, te lo prometto!

Tienti la tua paura;

io con sicura fede l’aspetto!

All this will happen, I promise you!

Don’t be afraid;

I await him knowing he’ll come!