Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera Production, 2024) (Metropolitan Opera Guild, Neubauer Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, filmed May 11, 2024, repeated May 15, 2024)
by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved Yesterday (Wednesday, May 15) at noon my husband Charles and I left for the AMC 20 theatres in Mission Valley to see the “encore presentation” of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly from the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” series. The performance originally took place on Saturday, May 11 but to see it then Charles and I would have had to get up really early in the morning – and he’d have had to get off work for the day (he’d already arranged to have yesterday off). Before the opera began I said sotto voce to Charles, “Say a prayer for my mother. Madama Butterfly was her all-time favorite opera.” Madama Butterfly began life as “Madame Butterfly,” a short story by American author John Luther Long, which was published in 1898 and was based on stories Long had heard from his sister, Jennie Correll. It was also inspired by Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthéme , which became the basis for Leo Del...