Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly
Puccini’s opera

Composer Giacomo Puccini
Conductors Risto Joost, Martin Sildos
Director Robert Annus
Designer, scenographer Maarja Meeru
Lighting designer Margus Vaigur (Endla)
Choreographer Marika Aidla
Original musical director Paul Mägi
Director’s assistant Heli Anni

Cast Tamara Kalinkina (Ukraine), Karmen Puis, Raimonds Bramanis (Latvian National Opera), Jānis Apeinis (Latvian National Opera), Rasmus Kull, Taavi Tampuu, Märt Jakobson, Artur Nagel, Simo Breede, Eve Kivisaar, Siiri Koodres, Helen Nõmm, Risto Orav et al.
Vanemuine opera choir and symphony orchestra

For me the origin and destination of this production is music.
The music contains drama.
Listening to it, a dramatic plotline unfolds.
Everything else proceeds from music.
And the sun rises in the east.
- Robert Annus, director

One of Puccini’s most beautiful operas, Madam Butterfly premiered on 17 February 1904 at La Scala in Milan.
In a small house near Nagasaki, American naval lieutenant Pinkerton and geisha Cio-Cio San, nicknamed Butterfly, get married. Pinkerton jokes about the ancient Japanese custom of entering into a marriage for 999 years. Although he is fond of Butterfly, he has plans to marry an American woman back home. But for Butterfly, Pinkerton is everything.

Premiere on 16 March 2019 in the Small Building of the Vanemuine
Language: Italian
Surtitles: English, Estonian