In the name Cio-Cio-San, the terrible destiny of the geisha is already written: Madama Butterfly. Lovely and fragile like a “delicate butterfly”, she is only fifteen when she marries Pinkerton, the Lieutenant of the United States Navy who returns after a long absence of three years, to claim the son born of their union. Unable to support the terrible delusion of the destruction of her dreams, the young mother sees no future but to sacrifice herself with a final, painful fluttering of her wings. The rousing fiasco of the first performance at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano on February 17, 1904 obliged Giacomo Puccini to pen a new version, which was met with a triumphant success a few months later at the Teatro Grande di Brescia. Since then this heart-wrenching Japanese tragedy has not failed to touch audiences all over the world.
Madama Butterfly
Japanese tragedy in three acts
Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica from Madam Butterfly by John Luther Long
Music by Giacomo Puccini
New staging in co-production with Fondazione Teatro Petruzzelli di Bari
Artists
Conductor
Giampaolo Bisanti / Andrea Battistoni (24/07)
After classical training in piano, he dedicated himself to directing opera. He collaborated with Graham Vick, Peter Hall, Sebastiano Lo Monaco and Marco Gandini, making his directing debut in 2006 with La Traviata. In 2008 he worked as an assistant director at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in collaboration with Luca Ronconi, Pier Luigi Pizzi and Eimuntas Nekrošius. In 2010 he staged Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini at the Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi, reproduced in February 2014 at the Teatro Comunale in Florence; L'italiana in Algeri in 2012 for the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari and the following year Giovanna d'Arco for the Festival della Valle d'Itria.
GIAMPAOLO BISANTI
Nasce a Milano e qui si diploma nel 1997 col massimo dei voti al Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi. Vincitore di numerose competizioni internazionali, tra cui il concorso Dimitri Mitropoulos di Atene, nel 2006 dirige La Bohème a Tel Aviv e, l’anno successivo, Otello al Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna e Don Giovanni al Teatro Verdi di Padova. Nel 2008 affrontaOrphée et Eurydice al Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Macbeth al Teatro Sociale di Rovigo, Manon Lescaut al Teatro Massimo di Palermo e La Bohème al Teatro La Fenice di Venezia. Successivamente, tra i tanti impegni, si segnalano La Traviata al Teatro San Carlo di Napoli e L’Elisir d’amore e Turandot al Teatro Regio di Torino. A Firenze sale sul podio nel 2008 per La Bohème e nel 2012 per La Traviata.