Madama Butterfly - Opera - Season 19/20 Programming - Opéra national de Paris

  • Opera

    Madama Butterfly

    Giacomo Puccini

    Opéra Bastille - from 14 September to 13 November 2019

    Elena Bauer / OnP

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Madama Butterfly

Opéra Bastille - from 14 September to 13 November 2019

Opera

Madama Butterfly

Giacomo Puccini

Opéra Bastille - from 14 September to 13 November 2019

2h45 with 1 interval

Surtitle : French / English

About

In few words:

For his Madame Chrysanthème, Pierre Loti drew on memories of his own visit to Japan in 1885. When composing Madama Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini was inspired by the popular melodies and sonorities of Japanese voices. However, in the literary work, as in the opera, the heroine remains the same: Kiku-san or Cio‑Cio‑san, a young geisha betrayed by her western husband, the symbol of the meeting of two different worlds. Robert Wilson’s ethereal production espouses to perfection the dramatic intensity and underlying violence of this thoroughly Japanese tragedy.

  • Opening
  • First part 50 mn
  • Intermission 30 mn
  • Second part 85 mn
  • End

Media coverage

  • Madame Butterfly à l’Opéra Bastille : Ana María Martínez impressionne

    classicagenda - Irène Mejia Buttin
  • Madame Butterfly ou l’univers poétique en majesté de Bob Wilson

    Publik'Art - Amaury Jacquet
  • La production de Madame Butterfly du metteur en scène Bob Wilson n’a pas pris la moindre ride, offrant un écrin d’esthète à l’œuvre de Giacomo Puccini

    Olyrix - Violette Renié
  • Le ténor italien Giorgio Berrugi […] a un chant délicieux : sa voix est très seine et le timbre est beau

    Classique News - Sabino Pena Arcia
  • D’un merveilleux raffinement et d’une précision cristalline, l’orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris laisse s’épanouir aussi bien les sonorités les plus ténues que les emphases puissantes.

    classicagenda - Irène Mejia Buttin
  • La scénographie offre des tableaux très esthétiques

    Olyrix - Violette Renié
  • Quand l’art protéiforme du maître texan rencontre le feu puccinien pour un spectacle total

    Publik'Art - Amaury Jacquet
  • Nous avons trouvé son [Ana María Martínez] interprétation bouleversante

    Classique News - Sabino Pena Arcia
  • Ana Maria Martinez est impressionnante dans la tragique scène finale qui se termine par des accords déchirants.

    Toute la Culture - Jean-Marie Chamouard

Performances

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Advantages

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Audio clips

Madame Butterfly (saison 19/20)- Acte II

Madame Butterfly (saison 19/20)- Acte III (Ana María Martínez)

Madame Butterfly (saison 19/20) - Acte II (Ana María Martínez, Laurent Naouri)

Madame Butterfly (saison 19/20)- Acte II (Ana María Martínez)

Backstage

  • Draw-me Madama Butterfly

    Video

    Draw-me Madama Butterfly

  • The lighting for Madama Butterfly

    Article

    The lighting for Madama Butterfly

  • Podcast Madame Butterfly

    Podcast

    Podcast Madame Butterfly

Draw-me Madama Butterfly

01:07’

Video

Draw-me Madama Butterfly

Understand the plot in 1 minute

By Octave

For his Madame Chrysanthème, Pierre Loti drew on memories of his own visit to Japan in 1885. When composing Madama Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini was inspired by the popular melodies and sonorities of Japanese voices. However, in the literary work, as in the opera, the heroine remains the same: Kiku-san or Cio‑Cio‑san, a young geisha betrayed by her western husband, the symbol of the meeting of two different worlds. Robert Wilson’s ethereal production espouses to perfection the dramatic intensity and underlying violence of this thoroughly Japanese tragedy.  

© Elena Bauer / OnP

The lighting for Madama Butterfly

Article

The lighting for Madama Butterfly

A production, a memory

02’

By Rui De Matos Machado

Deputy head of the lighting department

“I know few other directors who place as much importance on lighting as Robert Wilson. He is present at every revival, requesting a significant number of lighting sessions to refine his lighting and enrich it with the experience gathered from other productions that have marked his personal development. I have worked with him on the lighting for Die Zauberflöte, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Madama ButterflyMadama Butterfly was our first collaboration.

When you think about the lighting for Bob’s productions, the first thing that comes to mind is the cyclorama—that stretched canvas upstage which helps to create huge and highly homogenous luminous surfaces… It’s a key feature of his aesthetic which works to define the atmosphere on stage. He doesn’t use it in a descriptive or realistic way to depict the sky for example, as so many other directors do. It’s a dynamic form of lighting which evolves and adapt to the ebbs and flows of the drama: it turns red when the bonze storms furiously on stage to reproach Cio-Cio-San for having repudiated her family; it takes on a truly poetic shade of deep blue when the child, in all its fragility, walks on stage… This interaction between the lighting and the characters is one of the characteristics of Wilson’s aesthetic: there is a continuity between the different components of the production, namely, the libretto, the music, the direction of the actors, the lighting…

A furious Bonze (Scott Wilde) enters to confront Cio-Cio-San (Svetla Vassileva) - 2014
A furious Bonze (Scott Wilde) enters to confront Cio-Cio-San (Svetla Vassileva) - 2014 © Elena Bauer/OnP

The lighting for “Butterfly” has evolved with the succession of revivals. The most remarkable aspect in that development is the trend toward cooler hues: He has less and less time for those warmer slightly amber-toned lights. He leans more towards blues. It’s a development which I can see in all his other productions. Does that mean that the atmosphere is more serious, more tragic? No. Not really. The crisp light blue of winter can be perfectly cheerful. If I had to describe that development, I would say that he is moving towards daylight…”

© Elena Bauer / OnP

Podcast Madame Butterfly

Podcast

Podcast Madame Butterfly

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique

07’

By Charlotte Landru-Chandès, France Musique

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" offers original incursions into the season thanks to broadcasts produced by France Musique and the Paris Opera. For each opera or ballet production, Charlotte Landru-Chandès (opera) and Jean-Baptiste Urbain (dance), present the works and artists you are going to discover when you attend performances in our theatres. 

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