Madama Butterfly – ’Vogliatemi bene’ (Puccini, Ermonela Jaho, Marcelo Puente, The Royal Opera)

Ermonela Jaho (Cio-Cio-San) and Marcelo Puente (Pinkerton) perform the duet ‘Vogliatemi bene’ from Act I of Puccini’s 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’,