MADAME BUTTERFLY at Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa, Moniuszko Auditorium

A heart-breaking melodrama stolen from Pierre Lotti by John L. Long from whom David Belasco nipped it and then was taken over by Puccini’s librettists ? Giusseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. In spite of all the tribulations it has retained something of the Japanese theatre kabuki-like exaggeration and grandeloquent gestures capable of telling the eternal story of waiting, betrayal and loss of hope. The story of a Japanese lady abandoned by an American sailor has been recreated for over 13 years in Mariusz Treli?ski’s performance in accordance with the minimalistic spirit of this imprinted tradition. This adds weight and restores the rank of the dramaturgy of destiny to the opera. Puccini‘s music suggests that both eroticism and cruelty become something like a ritual, sublimating psychologicasl essences and creating a mind set from which there is no going back.