Opera title: | Madame Butterfly |
Composer: | Giacomo Antonio Puccini |
Language: | Italian |
Synopsis: | Madame Butterfly Synopsis |
Libretto: | Madame Butterfly Libretto |
Translation(s): | English Deutsch |
Type: | duet |
Role(s): | B. F. Pinkerton / Cio-Cio San |
Voice(s): | Tenor / Soprano |
Act: | 1.13b |
Previous scene: | Stolta paura |
Next scene: | Dolce notte! Quante stelle |
Ermonela Jaho as Cio-Cio San (with Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki) performs Un bel dí vedremo in Madama Butterfly. Find out more at
Giacomo Puccini was entranced by David Belasco’s play Madame Butterfly (based on a popular short story by John Luther Long) when he saw it in London in 1900. He collaborated with librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (with whom he had created La bohème and Tosca) to adapt Cio-Cio-San’s (Butterfly’s) tragic tale for the operatic stage. Although the premiere at La Scala, Milan, in 1904 was poorly received, that same year Puccini revised and restaged the opera for performances in Brescia, to great acclaim. Madama Butterfly quickly became a hugely popular opera with performers and audiences alike, and remains one of Puccini’s best-loved works.
Puccini drew on Japanese folk melodies for the score, one of his most evocative and atmospheric. In Act I, Cio-Cio-San expresses her radiant happiness in ‘Ancora un passo’, and the lovers rapturously declare their love for each other in the passionate duet ‘Viene la sera… vogliatemi bene’. In Act II, set three years later, the dominant mood is one of yearning; in her Act II aria ‘Un bel dì vedremo’ Cio-Cio-San longs for the ‘fine day’ when her husband will return to her.
Notte completa: cioelo purissimo e stellato. Avvicinandosi lentamente a Pinkerton seduto sulla panca nel giardino. Si inginocchia ai piedi di Pinkerton e los guarda con tenerezza, quasi suplichevole.
BUTTERFLY
Vogliatemi bene,
un ben piccolino,
un bene da bambino,
quale a me si conviene.
Vogliatemi bene.
Noi siamo gente avvezza
alle piccole cose
umili e silenziose,
ad una tenerezza
sfiorante e pur profonda
come il ciel, come l'onda del mare!
Full night: that is pure and starry. Slowly approaching Pinkerton sitting on the bench in the garden. He kneels at Pinkerton's feet and looks at him with tenderness, almost supri-compliant.
BUTTERFLY
Please feel good,
a very small child
a child's good,
which one suits me.
Please feel good.
We are good people
to the little things
humble and silent,
to a tenderness
grazing and yet deep
like heaven, like the wave of the sea!
Sheetmusic for duet | ![]() |
Sheetmusic for opera | ![]() |
MP3's for this duet | on Amazon.com |
DVD/CD's for this opera | on Amazon.com |