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Performing Arts: Opera Madama Butterfly

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Madama Butterfly's composer, Giacomo Puccini, rightly considered the opera his most "deeply felt and imaginative" work. Inspiring a number of reinterpretations — including a postmodern version by playwright David Henry Hwang and the Weezer album Pinkerton — the three-act opera tells the tale of 15-year-old geisha Cio-Cio San and her tragic love affair. Set in Nagasaki but sung in Italian with English subtitles, Robert Wilson's austere and static production informs the singers' every movement — they wander the minimalist stage slowly, delivering robotic gestures that contrast the sentimentality of the score. The result is an avant-garde and emotionally affecting rendition that transforms this classic work.

– Julian Hooper

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