The Met Opera Live in HD: Madama Butterfly (Puccini)

Anthony Minghella’s vividly cinematic staging returns to cinemas, featuring soprano Hui He in the devastating title role. Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts one of opera’s most beautiful and heartbreaking scores, with a cast that also includes tenor Piero Pretti as Pinkerton, baritone Paulo Szot as Sharpless, and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Suzuki.

The title character of Madama Butterfly—a young Japanese geisha who clings to the belief that her arrangement with a visiting American naval officer is a loving and permanent marriage—is one of the defining roles in opera. The story triggers ideas about cultural and sexual imperialism for people far removed from the opera house, and film, Broadway, and popular culture in general have riffed endlessly on it. The lyric beauty of Puccini’s score, especially the music for the thoroughly believable lead role, has made Butterfly timeless.