I went to the Leeds Grand Theatre last night and watched Opera North's wonderful performance of Puccini's wonderful opera 'Madam Butterfly'.
The story for those of you who don't know it is that a very young Japanese woman, Cio-Cio-San, falls in love with Pinkerton, a visiting American naval officer. She sacrifices everything to marry him, but he goes back home to America. She waits faithfully for him with only their child and her devoted servant Suzuki, but when, three years later, Pinkerton returns, he has brought his new American wife. The typical heart-renching Puccini ending is that they take the child while Cio-Cio-San kills herself! In this production Cio-Cio-San was sung by Anne Sophie Duprels, Pinkerton by Noah Stewart, who was making his British debut, and the wonderful Opera North orchestra was conducted by Daniele Rustioni who was conducting Madama Butterfly in the UK for the first time. The set was simple and highly effective and the orchestra was fantastic although the music was so powerful in some passages that they tended on occasions to drown out the voices.


The production has had wonderful reviews

"Opera North’s terrific new Madama Butterfly reduced me to jelly and forcefully reminded me that this is a work of consummate theatrical genius – Puccini’s masterpiece, and one of the defining artworks of the 20th century."
Daily Telegraph

". . . this is intelligent, disturbing music theatre that gets closer to the dark heart of Puccini’s opera..."
The Guardian êêêê

"Anne-Sophie Duprels offers a magnificently convincing interpretation of Butterfly...[her] singing blazes with more and more passion as the evening progresses…"
The Times êêêê


This is Puccini at his best. In Madam Butterfly he transports the audience into a magical world, full of Japanese culture, while he drains our emotions with his vision of love, drama, tragedy. If you get a chance go and see it!
Chris