Last year my fam­i­ly and I went to see Puccini’s Madama But­ter­fly per­formed at the Roy­al Opera House. I should men­tion I sup­pose that it was the live stream­ing we attend­ed, at Leeds’s Cot­tage Road Cin­e­ma, rather than the actu­al event, lest you think your blog­ger can actu­al­ly afford to ponce about in the cap­i­tal, with fam­i­ly in tow, and attend operas at £175 a tick­et. Any­way, attend the live stream­ing we did, and a com­fort­able and rel­a­tive­ly uncost­ly affair it was.

Operas are not exact­ly unknown for their explo­ration of trag­ic themes, but you would be hard pressed to find a more per­fect exam­ple of tragedy as expressed in music than Puccini’s mas­ter­piece. Indeed, it was a per­son­al favourite of the com­pos­er him­self who described it as ‘the most felt and most expres­sive opera that I have con­ceived’. This pro­duc­tion was direct­ed by Anto­nio Pap­pano (who first appeared on my radar in 2015 when I caught his excel­lent TV series about opera singers, Clas­si­cal Voic­es) and fea­tured Alban­ian sopra­no Ermonela Jaho in the star­ring role.

Madama But­ter­fly is set in Japan at the start of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, and tells the tale of the teenage geisha Cio-Cio San (“But­ter­fly”) and her doomed mar­riage to Pinker­ton, an Amer­i­can naval lieu­tenant. To Pinker­ton, the mar­riage is one of con­ve­nience and short­ly after the wed­ding he leaves Japan. Three years lat­er, But­ter­fly is still wait­ing for him, and despite her maid Suzu­ki endeav­our­ing to con­vince her that Pinker­ton is not com­ing back, But­ter­fly won’t listen…and just that dogged belief alone, against all ratio­nale, is enough to break your heart. We know only too well, as does Suzu­ki, that he’s not com­ing back.

Actu­al­ly Pinker­ton does come back, but not to But­ter­fly. Instead, he is – cru­el blow! — with his new Amer­i­can wife, and from this point on, Puc­ci­ni focus­es ever deep­er on the heartache that cul­mi­nates in But­ter­fly com­mit­ting sui­cide.

I have select­ed the elec­tri­fy­ing Un bel dì vedremo (One fine day we’ll see) to show­case Ermonela Jaho’s (and Puc­cini’s) for­mi­da­ble artis­tic skill. Jaho, as But­ter­fly, deliv­ers this rav­ish­ing and pathos-filled solo from a deep well of emo­tion. As she stead­fast­ly sings of her belief that Pinker­ton will return to her, we can hard­ly watch, know­ing that tragedy awaits! It’s a great per­for­mance…