Puccini's Madama Butterfly: When My Ship Comes In

Published: Nov. 20, 2019, 5 p.m.

b'Sometimes an illusion is the hardest thing to let go of. For Puccini\\u2019s Madama Butterfly, that illusion comes in the form of a distant ship on the horizon, carrying her long lost husband. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton abandoned Cio-Cio-San three years earlier, but she\'s absolutely sure that one fine day he\'ll sail over the horizon and return for her and their child.\\xa0\\nThe aria "Un bel di vedremo" captures Butterfly\'s unwavering faith in their reunion and her unflagging desire for a better life. In this episode, Rhiannon Giddens and her guests explore the power of hope in Puccini\'s tragedy, as well as in a real-world Butterfly story. Then, you\'ll hear Ana Mar\\xeda Mart\\xednez sing the complete aria onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.\\nThe Guests\\nSoprano Ana Mar\\xeda Mart\\xednez\\xa0understands Butterfly not as a submissive woman-in-waiting, but as a woman of great determination and strength. Born in Puerto Rico, Mart\\xednez found some of her own inner strength when she and her parents moved to the mainland and left her extended family behind.\\nComposer and conductor Huang Ruo grew up in China, following in his father\'s footsteps by studying composition. A professor told him to go study in the United States, where he fell in love with Puccini. He\'s currently writing an opera based on David Henry Hwang\\u2019s play, M. Butterfly. \\nSandra Kumamoto Stanley chairs the Asian American Studies department at California State University. Her interest in Butterfly extends beyond the racialized fantasy within the opera: she has written about how society would have treated Cio-Cio-San\\u2019s mixed-race child.\\nA writer and former psychotherapist, Kyoko Katayama is the child of a Japanese woman and an American soldier stationed in Tokyo after World War II. Like Pinkerton, her biological father shipped out and unwittingly left behind his pregnant lover. Katayama sees a clear parallel between Butterfly\\u2019s life and her mother\\u2019s.\\nSpecial thanks to Kathryn Tolbert and Lucy Craft, whose work on The War Bride Experience was invaluable to this episode.'