Madama Butterfly at Festival Theatre

Classic, timeless and stylish, Sir David McVicar’s Madama Butterfly has been a firm favourite since it was first staged in 2000. Foregoing sentimentality to create a rich cast of characters with unflinchingly human characteristics, his production lays bare a hugely atmospheric, poignant story that still has the power to affect, over a century after it was first performed.

Cio-Cio-San, a young girl living in Nagasaki, has fallen for Pinkerton, a reckless American naval officer stationed near her home. Despite her family’s objections, she gives up all she has to marry him, but he soon abandons her to return to America. When he returns three years later she is still patiently waiting, willing to do whatever is needed in the name of love. But ahead lie only betrayal and heartbreak.

Puccini’s sense of theatre is second to none and Butterfly sees him doing what he does best – painting beautifully exotic pictures in sound that are dramatic, often hauntingly lyrical, and full of emotion. Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee, one of The Independent on Sunday’s ‘Faces to Watch’ in 2013, and Anne Sophie Duprels (Manon 2009) share the role of Butterfly. José Ferrero (Tosca 2012) is Pinkerton.