From October 24, 2024: "Madama Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino: "Madama Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini
Thursday, 24 October, at 8 pm in the Sala Grande.
On the podium the principal conductor Daniele Gatti; the direction is by Lorenzo Mariani.
In the main parts, Carolina López Moreno as Cio-Cio-San; Piero Pretti is F. B. Pinkerton;
Nicola Alaimo plays Sharpless, Suzuki is Marvic Monreal.
New set-up
The performance of October 24th, 2024 will be broadcast on Rai Radio 3
Florence, October 18th 2024 - On Thursday, October 24th 2024, at 8 pm, in the Main Hall, the first performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a new production that returns to the Maggio's programme three years after the last performances of this opera. The show, after the premiere, has three other performances on the calendar on October 27th and November 2nd at 3:30pm and on October 31st at 8pm. On the podium, leading the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus, his principal conductor Daniele Gatti; the director is Lorenzo Mariani. The Chorus Master is Lorenzo Fratini.
The opera is part of the important celebration dedicated by Maggio Fiorentino to Giacomo Puccini on the occasion of the centenary of his death. During the 86th Festival of 2024, the historical staging of Zhang Yimou's Turandot was proposed, conducted by Zubin Mehta, and Tosca, conducted by Daniele Gatti with the stage direction of Massimo Popolizio. The current performances of Madama Butterfly precede two other appointments, the first scheduled on the day of the anniversary, November 29, when Maggio will remember the great composer with a particular show entitled "Puccini tells Puccini" on music composed by Puccini, with the dramaturgy of Alberto Mattioli and the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus that will be conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta. The second of these, a further and last tribute for 2024, concerns the revival of the single act Gianni Schicchi that will be staged (in conjunction with the opera Mavra by Stravinskij) under the baton of Francesco Lanzillotta and directed by Denis Krief starting from December 15th.
This new production of Butterfly is in chronological order the 25th that the Maggio Fiorentino has staged from April 1930 for a total of 150 performances so far.
On stage, in the role of the protagonist Cio-Cio-San, Carolina López Moreno, recently among the protagonists of Il trovatore, performed during the this summer tournée in Ljubljana. Piero Pretti, recently on stage for the Tosca, which closed the opera program of the last 86th Maggio Festival, is F.B. Pinkerton ( played by Vincenzo Costanzo in the performance of November 2nd); Nicola Alaimo, who returns to the Maggio after the performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia in September 2022, plays the role of Sharpless, while Marvic Monreal is Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San's servant. Goro and the rigorous Uncle Bonzo are played respectively by Oronzo D'Urso, a talent from Maggio Academy, and Bozhidar Bozhkilov. Min Kim, former talent of the Maggio Academy, and Elizaveta Shuvalova plays the roles of Prince Yamadori and Kate Pinkerton; Davide Sodini is the Imperial Commissioner. The cast is completed by a large group of artists from the Maggio Chorus: Giovanni Mazzei is Uncle Yakusidé; Egidio Massimo Naccarato is the Registry Officer, Thalida Marina Fogarasi; Paola Leggeri and Nadia Pirazzini are respectively the Aunt, the Cousin and the Mother of the protagonist Cio-Cio-San.
In this new production, the sets are by Alessandro Camera, the costumes by Silvia Aymonino and the lights design by Marco Filibeck.
“This production of Madama Butterfly is my last engagement as Principal Conductor - says maestro Daniele Gatti - here at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and follows by a few months Tosca, which was staged here last spring during the Festival. It is - and has been - for me a double return to the theater and the world of Puccini, from which I have been away for almost twenty years: it has given me great joy to take up his works again; for example, the reading that was given of Tosca testified to this research into what is the great theatricality of Puccini and the work that we have undertaken with Butterfly together with the director, Lorenzo Mariani, partly retraces the same path. I am very interested in the highly dramatized aspect of Puccini in which the characters are ‘sculpted’ in a very clear way by the composer, without forgetting the musical body of this great author with very languid and sweet expressions that are combined with an aspect where the strong dramaturgical side that he had emerges and this in consideration, for example, of the musical tempos chosen within an opera title that in my opinion alternates moments of almost comedy as in the first act and phases of introspection between the two worlds, the western one of Pinkerton and the eastern one of Butterfly: this contrast between these two poles becomes almost explosive. For example – continues the director – I always want to frame the wedding scene from the eyes of Pinkerton himself who sees it almost as a joke, even if the development of the plot makes us understand that this man has terribly underestimated human respect and naturally respect towards Cio-Cio-San, in addition to the value that this marriage contains in itself – theoretically – the promise of love. The opera then turns itself on its head and so we will see the story through her eyes starting from the second act and then, finally, reaching the real final catastrophe. One thing I thought about, regarding the last bars after the protagonist’s suicide, is to have them performed by a full orchestra according to the procedure called homophony: a musical line that is very reminiscent of the oriental character to which Puccini himself referred; a pentatonic procedure, without clear harmonic solutions. The last chord, on the other hand, is a ‘western’ chord: it almost seems like there is an explosion, as if the West had ‘invaded’ the oriental world with gravity and ferocity as Puccini, I believe, wanted us to understand.”
“This production of Madama Butterfly is my last engagement as Principal Conductor - says Maestro Daniele Gatti - here at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and follows by a few months Tosca, which was staged here last spring during the Festival. It is - and has been - for me a double return to the theater and the world of Puccini, from which I have been away for almost twenty years: it has given me great joy to take up his works again; for example, the reading that was given of Tosca testified to this research into what is the great theatricality of Puccini and the work that we have undertaken with Butterfly together with the director, Lorenzo Mariani, partly retraces the same path. I am very interested in the highly dramatized aspect of Puccini in which the characters are ‘sculpted’ in a very clear way by the composer, without forgetting the musical body of this great author with very languid and sweet expressions that are combined with an aspect where the strong dramaturgical side that he had emerges and this in consideration, for example, of the musical tempos chosen within an opera title that in my opinion alternates moments of almost comedy as in the first act and phases of introspection between the two worlds, the western one of Pinkerton and the eastern one of Butterfly: this contrast between these two poles becomes almost explosive. For example – continues the director – I always want to frame the wedding scene from the eyes of Pinkerton himself who sees it almost as a joke, even if the development of the plot makes us understand that this man has terribly underestimated human respect and naturally respect towards Cio-Cio-San, in addition to the value that this marriage contains in itself – theoretically – the promise of love. The opera then turns itself on its head and so we will see the story through her eyes starting from the second act and then, finally, reaching the real final catastrophe. One thing I thought about, regarding the last bars after the protagonist’s suicide, is to have them performed by a full orchestra according to the procedure called homophony: a musical line that is very reminiscent of the oriental character to which Puccini himself referred; a pentatonic procedure, without clear harmonic solutions. The last chord, on the other hand, is a ‘western’ chord: it almost seems like there is an explosion, as if the West had ‘invaded’ the oriental world with gravity and ferocity as Puccini, I believe, wanted us to understand.”
The direction is by Lorenzo Mariani who returns to the Maggio after having signed, in the autumn of 2016, another great Puccini masterpiece, La Bohème. Speaking about the new staging, Mariani underlined how this Madama Butterfly is not based on the usual concept of contrast between the Western and Eastern worlds and but rather on a ‘gesture’ of lightness by Puccini who, in a single musical phrase, manages to convey what is the main theme of the opera, that is, the fragility of the protagonist; a fragility common in every human creature and which, especially if faced and experienced in the wrong way, can be fatal: “This emotional transport of Puccini who, even correcting himself with respect to the first version of the opera’s score, is what triggered in me this idea of wanting to tell – and transmit – a precise vision of this story and its particular atmosphere. An atmosphere - continues the director - in Butterfly, is comparable to a light spirit, almost to convey the idea that she descends directly from the sky. You have the perception of being 'suspended', a sensation that underneath, terribly, can almost also be an 'invitation' for Cio-Cio-San to be destroyed, since the life of this very young girl will be completely torn apart by Pinkerton, literally torn in two: not because of an explicit malice on the part of the latter, but much more simply because he is, like many men, irresponsible. He does not have the courage to understand what are the feelings and needs of this very young woman and her being so fragile. I wanted to try, together with Alessandro Camera and Silvia Aymonino - the authors of the sets and costumes - to convey this atmosphere, characterized by the comparison between the West and the East: above all I decided to focus on telling this delicacy and nebulosity typical of the Eastern world that we Westerners are able to destroy, consciously or not, even if brutal things are almost never unconscious. We can really do harm and we are not capable of being careful enough. This opera tells us a story of torn fragility: for this reason we imagined a type of light world, capable of flying away with a breath and with a terrible ending that, among Puccini's operas, is absolutely closest to the concept of Aristotelian catharsis. This tragedy, as such, must be represented in an absolute, even transcendent and universal way: also thanks to a suspension and a fragility that then, in the end, will lead to the tragedy.”
Carolina López Moreno - defining the traits of the character she plays and the work done together with maestro Daniele Gatti - highlighted how it is really important that he always tries to make the most of the vocal instrument of the singers he works with, thus managing also on this occasion to give a unique interpretation to the character of Cio-Cio-San: "The work we are doing together with maestro Gatti is very interesting and particular: he is a conductor who looks with great attention to the vocal instrument of the singers he works with; he is also looking for what are the 'colors' of my character, making the most of the vocal potential. This is rare, since there are almost never so many occasions in which the conductor takes all the time necessary to take care of this aspect and, when I manage to get in tune with his vision of Butterfly's vocality, a truly wonderful situation is created. Working with Lorenzo Mariani is also very interesting: he knows the opera perfectly and therefore does not limit himself to just giving us directions for what our stage work will be, but he manages to impeccably communicate the emotions that we must then transmit when we are on stage. This is because Madama Butterfly is perhaps one of the strongest and most emotionally overwhelming dramas ever written and that of Cio-Cio-San is one of the most complex roles to tackle, but truly capable of deeply touching the soul and heart of every spectator. This allows me to say that it is not only important for me to take care of the vocal aspect, but also the acting aspect where I am trying to give as much authenticity as possible to the character I play.”
Speaking about the character he played and his return to the Maggio a few months after the success of another great Puccini masterpiece, Tosca, Piero Pretti underlined his emotions in taking on the role of Pinkerton again in his career: “I am truly happy to be able to return here to the Maggio after such a short time and to do so again under the direction of Maestro Daniele Gatti with whom I had the opportunity to work in what was my debut in Tosca a few months ago. Returning to play Pinkerton has also given me the opportunity to see the relationship between Sharpless and my character from another point of view: in fact, I cannot perceive a true bond of friendship between them; I give voice to an officer of the United States Navy, he is a consul who in the end - despite trying to warn me right up until the end about what my way of acting towards Cio-Cio-San will entail - cannot really prevent what will then be the real final drama of this opera. The work done together with Mariani, with whom I have also had the opportunity to work several times during my career, was also very interesting, since Lorenzo is a truly complete man of theatre from every point of view ”
Nicola Alaimo himself, who returns to the Maggio after the performances of Il Barbiere di Siviglia in autumn 2022, echoes what Pretti said, especially regarding the relationship between the two characters: "At first glance, the character of Sharpless can almost be perceived as the 'sage' of the story told on stage, capable of adopting an almost paternal attitude towards Pinkerton in some respects, warning him and making him understand that poor Cio-Cio-San believes in their union without hesitation. All of this, however, almost disappears at the end of the story, since Sharpless himself will go and pick up the child from the protagonist to take him to Pinkerton and Kate, the latter's 'real' American wife: he too, despite having a more caring attitude, is still a Westerner, like Pinkerton himself. It is also a pleasure to return to work with Maestro Gatti and Lorenzo Mariani: to Mariani himself – for me the first time where I am directed by him as a director – I owe my debut in Palermo, my city, in Simon Boccanegra more than ten years ago when he was the artistic director at the time; so I am truly happy to be able to collaborate with him again”