‘A madness seizes me to pursue her, even though I might damage her wings.’ There lies the tragedy of Madama Butterfly, the geisha purchased as a temporary wife and callously abandoned by an American naval officer on tour of duty in Nagasaki at the turn of the 20th century. Cio-Cio-San was not alone. Many young Japanese women shared the same fate, often left with children, cast out from society.

In June 1900 Giacomo Puccini, in London to supervise rehearsals of Tosca, saw David Belasco’s Madam Butterfly at the Duke of York’s Theatre. The play, setting John Luther Long’s novella, is just a single act, but Puccini, who didn’t speak a word of English, was captivated by Butterfly’s dusk-to-dawn vigil. He suggested it to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, and worked with librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa to elaborate the plot.

Setting sail for Japan

By the turn of the 20th century, japonisme had become a Western obsession: Japanese-style water gardens were in vogue, as were woodblock prints – Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa was soon to appear on the score of Debussy’s La mer. In opera, André Messager had composed a setting of Madame Chrysanthème (1893), Pierre Loti’s semi-autobiographical novel whose first-person narrative describes a naval officer who purchases a temporary marriage with a tea-house geisha while stationed in Nagasaki.

Leopoldo Metlicovitz’s art-nouveau poster for the 1904 premiere of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (photo: Bridgeman Images)

‘I have now set sail for Japan’, Puccini wrote to Ricordi in January 1902. In Milan he saw performances by geisha-turned-actress Sada Yacco. Her signature tune, accompanying herself on the koto, was The Lion of Echigo, which Puccini used as the basis for Cio-Cio-San’s entrance. He also received advice from Mme Ohyama, wife of the Japanese ambassador in Rome. When Cio-Cio-San unwraps her belongings, Puccini draws on the folk song ‘Sakura’, while the Imperial Japanese march ‘Miya San’ is used for the entrance of Prince Yamadori. Much of Butterfly’s music is based on the pentatonic scale, while Pinkerton gets a Star-Spangled Banner quotation.

Fiasco at La Scala

The 1904 premiere was a fiasco, ambushed by a well-prepared La Scala claque. Puccini, still limping from a near-fatal car accident the year before, was mocked. Rosina Storchio, singing the title-role, was known to be having an affair with Arturo Toscanini. When a draught caused her kimono to billow, there were ribald cries of ‘Toscanini’s baby!’

Puccini withdrew the score immediately but his faith was unshaken, and he wrote ‘Butterfly lives and will still rise again’. He made several revisions, principally for Brescia (1904) and Paris (1906), and it’s the latter version that we usually hear today.

Cultural sensitivities have led to recent hand-wringing about staging Butterfly. A Japanese colleague assured me that the Japanese are not offended by Puccini’s opera. The only thing liable to irritate them is if the director gets Cio-Cio-San’s death wrong: women did not commit seppuku (the disembowelling suicide), but jigai – slitting the throat. Although Belasco’s play is unbelievably racist, depicting her as a submissive oriental, babbling in broken English, Puccini makes her a true heroine – noble and defiant. The Americans emerge badly, especially in the original version, where Pinkerton is particularly cynical and insulting. Puccini watered this down when adding the aria ‘Addio, fiorito asil’, an attempt to soften Pinkerton’s crassness (and to massage bruised tenor egos).

Cocooned with 29 recordings of Butterfly (I confined myself to studio recordings plus a clutch of Blu-rays and DVDs) has made for intense listening and viewing, only increasing my admiration for Puccini’s greatest tear-jerker.

Early recordings

The first complete recording was made during Puccini’s lifetime (Carlo Sabajno at La Scala, 1921 – nla). Four years after the composer’s death, Lorenzo Molajoli, conducting La Scala forces, doesn’t hang around. Rosetta Pampanini is an emotional Cio-Cio-San, not averse to yelps and distracting exclamations. She is well matched by Alessandro Granda’s ardent Pinkerton; ‘Addio, fiorito asil’ sounds truly remorseful, not least because he punctuates the vocal line with sobs that strike one as a bit tasteless.

A year later came Carlo Sabajno’s second account, featuring Irish soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan (known affectionately as ‘Maggie from Mayo’), the first non-Italian to sing the title-role at La Scala, where the public fell in love with her. So did Puccini, who wrote ‘she is full of charismatic intensity and childlike appeal’. You can hear why. Her soprano has real Italianate colour, not always beautiful, but ‘Un bel dì’ is swift and urgent. Lionello Cecil, her Pinkerton, is undistinguished, drawing Herman Klein’s barb: ‘One does not feel inclined to share Butterfly’s grief over her husband’s absence during the second act.’

Despite Beniamino Gigli’s stylish Pinkerton for Oliviero de Fabritiis, I don’t get on with Toti Dal Monte’s portrayal of the title-role. A soprano leggiero, she sounds pushed in the love duet, top notes strained. ‘She is the child-Butterfly’, noted John Steane (A/02), but that childlike voice is over-exaggerated.

Out of the frame

Next, a quick tour of recordings that aren’t really top tier. For Columbia, Max Rudolf conducts the Metropolitan Opera (the only studio Butterfly from America). Harold C Schonberg gave it short shrift, accusing Eleanor Steber of overreaching herself: ‘A Butterfly without Butterfly can scarcely be called an exhilarating experience.’ There’s a lot of very loud singing from both Steber and Richard Tucker in the love duet, although Tucker’s Pinkerton has bags of swagger.

I enjoyed Angelo Questa’s Cetra recording a lot. Clara Petrella is a full‑throated lirico spinto Cio-Cio-San, particularly responsive to Giuseppe Taddei’s thoughtful Sharpless. As Pinkerton, Ferruccio Tagliavini’s tenor was on the wane but is still beautifully delicate at the start of the love duet, even if his top notes harden. It’s certainly one to hear, unlike Erich Leinsdorf’s second recording. Leontyne Price falls into the trap of overdoing the childlike characterisation – the girly scream when Sharpless appears in Act 2 is ridiculous – and the text goes for little. At full throttle, she’s thrilling, but the swoops between notes are alarming. Tucker repeats his brash Pinkerton, adding crude sobs to ‘Addio, fiorito asil’. I was utterly unmoved by the whole thing.

Peter Dvorsk≥ is a youthful, lyrical Pinkerton on Giuseppe Patanè’s Hungarian State Opera reading. Veronika Kincses is a good Cio-Cio-San, animated without falling into caricature. Patanè paces keenly, but the boomy recording is problematic. Alexander Rahbari conducts the Czecho-Slovak RSO in a fine Naxos recording, although the tension sags just at the point where the cannon goes off. Miriam Gauci and Yordy Ramiro are attractive in the lead roles.

The most recent studio recording (2019) comes from Pentatone, Lawrence Foster conducting the Gulbenkian Orchestra and a pretty ordinary cast, except for Melody Moore’s intelligent performance of the title-role. Her soprano is mature and full-bodied although there’s occasionally a considerable wobble to the voice. Stefano Secco’s pinched Pinkerton is so dry he sounds indistinguishable from Goro.

The original Butterfly

There are two CD releases that allow you to hear Puccini’s original thoughts. The 1904 Milan version includes around 130 bars that were later cut, including local colour in Act 1, such as an arioso for Cio-Cio-San’s tipsy uncle, Yakuside. On Günter Neuhold’s Naxos recording, Bruce Rankin is a good Pinkerton, even if his soft singing sounds a little affected. Vocally, Svetlana Katchour is on the heavy side for Cio-Cio-San, snatching at top notes.

A Vox box of the 1904 version includes appendices that chart the revisions for Brescia (1904) and Paris (1906). This results in a four-disc set and a thick booklet so one can track (with some difficulty) all the changes. It’s a fascinating document but the performances – Charles Rosekrans conducting the Hungarian State Opera – are not top drawer, although Maria Spacagna’s Cio-Cio-San is gutsy. If you really want to experience the 1904 original, check out the La Scala DVD below.

Netting Butterfly on film

Andreas Homoki directs a production on the lake at the Bregenz Festival, setting the action on a sheet of parchment featuring projections of grasses and cherry blossoms. Barno Ismatullaeva is a decent Butterfly but Edgaras Montvidas’s bottled tenor makes for a disappointing Pinkerton. Homoki makes one daft miscalculation, revealing Butterfly’s child right at the start of Act 2 (Jean-Pierre Ponnelle does the same in his film). Enrique Mazzola conducts an offstage Wiener Symphoniker.

At Glyndebourne, Annilese Miskimmon relocates the action to post-war Nagasaki, Act 1 set in the marriage-broker’s office, so we see a string of weddings, efficiently processed. There are reels of historic Pathé footage, but this premise is based on Japanese brides being taken back to America to begin a new life, whereas Pinkerton has no such intention. Olga Busuioc and Joshua Guerrero are attractive in the leads. Omer Meir Wellber gives Puccini’s score plenty of punch.

Anthony Minghella’s cinematic staging at the Metropolitan Opera, with its widescreen set, lacquered stage and blood-red sky (familiar to ENO audiences in London) is outstanding … if you can stomach the use of a puppet to depict the child (it’s strangely moving). In its 2008 Met premiere, conducted by Patrick Summers, Patricia Racette and Marcello Giordani are effective enough, but there have been stronger casts since. I fervently hope the recent revival with Asmik Grigorian and Jonathan Tetelman, which I saw in the cinema, transfers to DVD.

Alvis Hermanis directs the 1904 version at La Scala, the very house where the opera flopped at its premiere. A traditional production, the set features the usual shoji paper screens but on three levels. Riccardo Chailly is a passionate advocate and gets terrific playing from his Milanese orchestra. Bryan Hymel and Carlos Álvarez are classy as Pinkerton and Sharpless but, despite singing well, Maria José Siri is an emotionally detached Cio‑Cio‑San.

Ermolena Jaho’s deeply moving performance at Covent Garden in 2017 is caught on film (photo: Alamy Stock)

For emotional commitment – and then some – look no further than Ermonela Jaho’s gut-wrenching reading at Covent Garden, vividly conducted by Antonio Pappano. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s staging works, a huge branch shedding cherry blossom as Butterfly commits suicide a heart-stopping image. Elizabeth DeShong, my favourite Suzuki in recent years, is a heartfelt foil for Jaho in Act 2. Marcelo Puente is the adequate Pinkerton.

Away from the opera stage, there are two ‘big screen’ efforts. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s 1974 film is with the same cast as Herbert von Karajan’s Decca recording (below) with the exception of Plácido Domingo’s gum-chewing Pinkerton replacing Luciano Pavarotti. John Steane detested it: ‘“Abbominazione!” as the Bonze very rightly says.’ That’s a little harsh. It’s of its time. True, the lip-synching isn’t always tight and the straw-boatered Goro looks like he’s stepped straight out from The Mikado, but Mirella Freni is gently affecting and there are magical moments, such as the slo-mo of Freni and Christa Ludwig’s Suzuki strewing petals in the Flower Duet.

Much better is Frédéric Mitterand’s film, shot on location (in North Africa) and faithful to the libretto (and almost to the score – the Intermezzo is cut). Beautifully directed, the performances are finely nuanced. For once, Goro is not a gross caricature and there’s a cameo from Yoshi Oida as Cio-Cio-San’s father, a flashback to his suicide shown just before Butterfly’s. In the Humming Chorus, Mitterand shows footage from turn-of-the-century Japan, which is oddly moving. The singers are young, with light voices: Richard Troxell is a reedy but appealing Pinkerton, but the star is Chinese soprano Ying Huang, who brings sincerity and fragility to the role of Cio-Cio-San. I find her performance quietly devastating.

The top contenders

Whatever the relative merits of Pinkerton, Suzuki or Sharpless, every recording of Butterfly stands or falls by the quality of its Cio-Cio-San and, to a lesser extent, by its conductor. So we arrive at seven sopranos who have something special to offer. Four of them – Victoria de los Ángeles, Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto and Mirella Freni – recorded the role twice; in each case I prefer their earlier attempts.

How much does stage experience count? It’s not necessarily a prerequisite. Maria Callas didn’t make her role debut until three months after her recording and then only for three (ecstatically received) Chicago performances in 1955, yet her vocal acting on Karajan’s first recording is so vivid that you would never guess. Tebaldi didn’t perform the role until after her second recording. Anna Moffo had zero stage experience when she recorded the role for Leinsdorf in 1957 but had starred in a RAI telecast when barely on the brink of her career a year earlier.

Neither Freni nor Angela Gheorghiu performed the title-role, although Freni featured in Ponnelle’s film. However, their interpretations on record feel studio-bound. On the other hand, de los Ángeles and Scotto both performed Butterfly many times, but whereas Scotto sounds deeply inside the role, de los Ángeles can skate over the emotions.

Tebaldi and Callas

Tebaldi is in fresher voice in her first recording, with Alberto Erede and the Santa Cecilia Academy (1951), more mature in her 1958 account with Tullio Serafin and the same Roman orchestra. Rome, incidentally, simply owns Butterfly on disc with no fewer than nine – often outstanding – studio recordings taped in the Eternal City!

Renata Tebaldi lives and breathes her role (photo: Granger / Bridgeman Images)

Tebaldi is not a typical Cio-Cio-San. Her voice is on the grander spinto side, which causes initial difficulties in portraying a 15-year-old. She wisely ducks the high D flat in Butterfly’s treacherous entrance (it’s marked as optional in the score) but there’s an irksome cackle when Cio-Cio-San reveals her age. Yet Tebaldi lives and breathes the role. In Act 2 with Erede, listen to the way she takes the letter and kisses it or the way she repeats the line ‘non mi rammenta più’ (‘does not remember me any more’), revealing her devastation (second time around, Tebaldi spoils it by interjecting sobs). Listen also to the shock in her voice when the cannon sounds in the harbour.

For Serafin, Carlo Bergonzi is the most poetic Pinkerton on record, possibly too nice, but Giuseppe Campora is appealing too (Erede), opening ‘Bimba dagli occhi’ with the softest head voice. Fiorenza Cossotto’s Suzuki makes the Flower Duet a definite highlight of the later recording, she and Tebaldi blending beautifully, but Serafin is inclined to linger. It’s marginal, but Tebaldi 1 is the finer account.

Callas’s recording is frustrating. Yes, she comes off the D flat clumsily at the start and there are some ugly notes in the love duet, but her word-painting is expert – she has considered every phrase carefully – and ‘Un bel dì’ is wonderfully nuanced. Her ‘little girl’ affectations can sound a bit arch but I took a lot from her interpretation. However, Nicolai Gedda is far from idiomatic as Pinkerton and Karajan micro-manages to the point that it all feels rather precious, as if he were cradling a porcelain doll.

Light and lyric

Victoria de los Ángeles did not earn glowing notices in these pages for her first Butterfly, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni. Alec Robertson was touched but not moved, while Harold C Schonberg described her portrayal as ‘like an angel placidly knitting socks for the baby’. I find it a beautifully judged reading, with just the right weight of voice. Giuseppe Di Stefano is possibly my favourite Pinkerton, sounding caddish and confident – you can almost picture him puffing out his chest – and Tito Gobbi is a characterful Sharpless.

De los Ángeles’s second recording (with Gabriele Santini) is less preferable. She can sound a little precious at times and voices are more distantly miked. Jüssi Björling has a ringing tone but doesn’t present much of a character as Pinkerton. Mario Sereni is a dull dog of a Sharpless.

There was no need for Anna Moffo to feign youth in her RCA recording (just reissued on Urania), because she had only just turned 25! Her light lyric soprano sounds dewy, taking the high D flat comfortably. ‘Un bel dì’ starts really softly and is affectingly sung, growing to an impressive climax, although her final notes lack firepower. She is animated – listen to the way she teases Yamadori – and there is both fragility and tenderness in her believable characterisation. When she echoes Sharpless’s ‘non mi rammenta più’ it really stings. She whispers the inscription on her father’s sword, which you hear clatter to the ground as she commits suicide. The rest of the cast is decent, with Cesare Valletti a breezy Pinkerton, Rosalind Elias a warm Suzuki and Renato Cesari a sturdy Sharpless. Leinsdorf’s crisp conducting bustles through the score, occasionally skating over nuances.

Angela Gheorghiu’s Cio-Cio-San is in a similar mould. Her lyric soprano was never more than mid-weight – she’d have struggled singing it in a large house – but her Santa Cecilia recording with Pappano has a lot going for it. She is delicate and sings with a tiny voice as the coy teenager. There’s quite a distinctive vibrato, though, and she doesn’t always dig deep inside the role. Jonas Kaufmann is a baritonal Pinkerton, a little anonymous, Fabio Capitanucci a youthful Sharpless. Pappano – the greatest Puccini conductor around today – brings vibrant energy to the score.

Freni and Scotto

Mirella Freni is in exquisite ‘peaches and cream’ voice for Karajan. Neil Fisher and I debated this recording in Classics Reconsidered (5/24) and I stand by my verdict there that it’s very much a product of the studio with little opera-house frisson. That’s squarely on Karajan, who proposes the Vienna Philharmonic as the chief protagonist. They play gloriously, but the slow tempos and Karajan’s sledgehammer treatment of moments such as the wedding gate-crashing of the Bonze is ridiculous. Luciano Pavarotti is the sunniest of Pinkertons, though, and his chemistry with Freni is sublime. Christa Ludwig, one of the loveliest Suzukis, is luxury casting.

Freni’s second recording suffers from conductor interference to an even greater degree. Giuseppe Sinopoli’s reading is perverse, dragging to two hours 34 minutes (Leinsdorf is a tad over two hours). It’s often terribly beautiful but as drama, it’s inert. Freni is stretched by the slow tempos and her soprano hardens unattractively. José Carreras is pushed, clinging on to high notes for dear life, his tenor going off the rails in an ‘Addio, fiorito asil’ that positively crawls. Juan Pons is a gruff Sharpless, but Teresa Berganza is a treasurable Suzuki.

Renata Scotto sounds deeply inside the role of Cio-Cio-San (photography: Bill Cooper / ROH / The History Collection)

Scotto actually preferred her second Butterfly, conducted by Lorin Maazel, citing the experience that motherhood made to her interpretation. Alas, her voice had developed quite a wobble by 1977 and top notes can be squally. Maazel’s approach is limp, lacking emotional charge. Domingo is a tender Pinkerton, Ingvar Wixell a gritty Sharpless.

When Scotto made her earlier account – Rome, 1966 – the focus was very much on John Barbirolli, embarking upon his first major opera recording. Edward Greenfield raved about ‘Glorious John’, with good reason. It had been 13 years since he had last conducted in an opera house, but his temperament and operatic pedigree – both his father and grandfather played in the premiere of Otello! – are evident throughout, drawing rich yet incredibly disciplined playing from the Rome Opera Orchestra.

Although Barbirolli wallows (cue the odd ecstatic groan), he’s still three minutes swifter than Karajan on Decca. The Intermezzo contains lush playing … and real birds flying from one speaker to the other! Bergonzi repeats his mellifluous Pinkerton and Rolando Panerai is a wise, sympathetic Sharpless. Anna Di Stasio sings warmly as Suzuki and Paolo Montarsolo is a fearsome Bonze.

It’s impossible to resist Scotto’s Cio-Cio-San. ‘Un bel dì’ is utterly terrific, the text coloured sensitively. The letter-reading scene is devastating: the orchestral stab when Sharpless asks Butterfly what she would do if Pinkerton were not to return completely blows the wind out of her sails. She sounds so frightened, so fragile, that she can hardly voice her thoughts.

In his (very positive) review, EG harboured a doubt about Scotto – ‘I cannot always see the face, and sometimes when I do it is an opera singer’s face rather than a Japanese geisha-girl’s’ – but to me this is about seeing the wider picture. In her autobiography, More Than a Diva, Scotto wrote: ‘I learned very soon that Butterfly is not a doll … she is a woman, she says so. Here is someone who had to face poverty, shame, the death of her father, who was made to go with men when she was only a child … she must never be a cute Japanese doll.’ That’s the very real woman Scotto presents here and it’s why this recording would be my prime recommendation.

Top Choice

Scotto, Bergonzi; Op di Roma / Barbirolli

Warner Classics

It’s impossible to resist Renata Scotto’s Cio‑Cio‑San, a deeply felt portrayal and no ‘cute Japanese doll’. Allied to Carlo Bergonzi’s golden-hued Pinkerton and ‘Glorious John’ Barbirolli’s impassioned conducting, it’s a recording that has always been in the catalogue, for very good reason.

Fragility and tenderness

Moffo, Valletti; Op di Roma / Leinsdorf

Urania 

Anna Moffo was barely older than Cio-Cio-San herself – just 25 – when she recorded the role for RCA. Her light, dewy soprano convinces and her characterisation has a depth and animation beyond her tender years. Leinsdorf’s pacy conducting propels the action forwards and Cesare Valletti is a breezy Pinkerton.

The other Renata

Tebaldi, Campora; Accademia di S Cecilia Orch / Erede

Decca 

Renata Tebaldi’s second recording, with Carlo Bergonzi and Tullio Serafin, is widely celebrated, but this earlier account finds her in fresher voice, living and breathing a role she had not yet played on stage, sung with spinto opulence. The underrated Giuseppe Campora is a stylish Pinkerton.

DVD/Blu-ray choice

Huang, Troxell; Orch de Paris / Conlon

Columbia Tristar 

A controversial choice, perhaps, but Frédéric Mitterand’s film is gorgeously shot and Chinese soprano Ying Huang’s sincere performance of the title-role is quietly devastating. If you prefer an opera house staging, Ermonela Jaho and Antonio Pappano at Covent Garden should draw the tears.

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