| Peter Gordon’s opera workshop is back with one of the most well known Opera of all times!
In this session, we’ll listen to the musical highlights, look at how Puccini used Japanese and American musical influences and, for those who do practice a little Italian, review some of the most revealing lines of the libretto. We’ll also try to understand Butterfly herself. Is she a delicate creature, deceived and broken like the butterflies she says Westerners stick with a pin to display under glass? Or is she instead of a young woman of substance, who knows her mind and breaks with tradition fully aware of the possible consequences?
Know before you go: Madama Butterfly
East tragically meets West in Giacomo Puccini’s most poignant opera. To keep himself amused on a long stopover in Nagasaki, Lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton buys himself a wife and a house, both on monthly renewable terms. The American Consul warns him that the girl is deeply in love and is taking it all seriously — she even converted to Christianity. Pinkerton waves it off and proposes a drink to the time he gets married “in a proper wedding” to a “real American wife”. The ceremony is a disaster as Butterfly’s uncle, a local priest, curses her for renouncing her traditions. But the first Act ends with one of the most beautiful love duets in opera: maybe, we think, Pinkerton loves her after all. Not enough, apparently, to change the trajectory of his life and career. Three years after his ship leaves, she is still waiting — with a small, blond son he knows nothing about. Pinkerton, of course, is returning, but not alone, leading to a truly heart-rending ending.
Workshop fee: HK$200 (10% off DA members and students)
Special Discount for DA MEMBERS for the upcoming performance of PUCCINI’S MADAME BUTTERFLY, produced by Musica Viva in Hong Kong on 7-9 Dec 2018:
35% off on ticket price
name, members number, number of tickets, type of tickets and contact details.
We look forward to meeting you soon! |
