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78Madame Butterfly's Pets
He called her his "Madame Butterfly," always with an affectionate chuckle as he quickly amended that nickname, with: "Hmmm . . . . I mean Madame Ailanthus." It was long time joke between them, one she...
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75Opera plots - Puccini's Madame Butterfly
This is one of the best-known and loved of all operas, both for its superb music and its plot, a tragedy of broken faith in which the whole audience longs to scream out to Butterfly, "don't trust him!" The...
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77Opera plots - Puccini's La Boheme
The willing suspension of disbelief is required for any dramatic performance, but this seems to be especially so in the case of opera. For one thing, people just don't go around singing at each other, at...
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69My Favorite Opera Arias and Duets
This Italian opera, Turandot, was unfinished by Giacomo Puccini. He suffered from throat cancer and died from a heart attack before he could finish it. Franco Alfano, a friend of Puccini, completed the score,...
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80Opera plots - Puccini's Tosca
There are not too many laughs in Tosca, which is based on a drama by the French playwright Victorien Sardou, set in Rome in 1800. The play was first performed in 1887, and it first attracted the attention of...
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79Opera plots - Puccini's Turandot
The plots of great operas are often difficult to fathom, partly because opera composers are generally more interested in writing great music than telling a believable story. The plot is merely a peg on which...
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