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Madama ButterflyNouvelle production

Bâtiment des Forces MotricesPlace des Volontaires 2, Genève, Geneva, Suisse
Dates/horaires selon le fuseau horaire de Zurich
jeudi 23 avril 202619:30
samedi 25 avril 202619:30
dimanche 26 avril 202615:00
mardi 28 avril 202619:30
mercredi 29 avril 202620:00
jeudi 30 avril 202619:30
samedi 02 mai 202619:30
dimanche 03 mai 202615:00
Programme
Puccini, Giacomo (1858-1924)Madama ButterflyLivret de Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa
Artistes
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Antonino FoglianiDirection
Barbora HorákováMise en scène
Wolfgang MenardiDécors
Eva Maria van AckerCostumes
Sascha ZaunerLumières
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Diana MarkosianVidéaste
Chœur du Grand Théâtre de Genève
Mark BigginsChef de chœur
Corinne WintersSopranoCio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly)2026 avril 23, 26 mat, 28, 30, mai 03 mat
Heather EngebretsonSopranoCio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly)2026 avril 25, 29, mai 02
Stephen CostelloTénorPinkerton
Andrey ZhilikhovskyBarytonSharpless
Kai Rüütel-PajulaMezzo-sopranoSuzuki
Denzil DelaereTénorGoro
Mark KurmanbayevBasseLe Bonze
Charlotte BozziSopranoKate Pinkerton
Vladimir KazakovBarytonPrince Yamadori

Giacomo Puccini chose the subject of his sixth opera after attending a performance of David Belasco’s single-act play, Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, in London in June 1900. This was not the first time that the composer and his two librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa had been inspired by the literature of their own time – there was also Victorien Sardou’s Tosca, for example – and this time again, in 1904, it would be a masterpiece that was born. The world’s most performed opera almost every season, its story is of a geisha who renounces everything for the love of an American marine who is passing through. If only it had been just a passing love affair!

And what if what we were seeing were just a tiny fraction of the whole? If each piece of the jigsaw only made sense with all the others? If what appeared whole and linear was just a fragment of the tapestry, and we weren’t able to distinguish the figure in the tapestry until 120 years had passed since its creation? And what would have happened if this story had been embodied by a son, such as the son accidentally born of the alliance between the geisha Cio Cio San and the marine F. Pinkerton, caught in a time other than that of his young and passionate parents, who themselves are caught up in their daily paradoxes of decisions that they don’t know are decisive? Loving each other but incapable of foreseeing the consequences of their actions and thus building the epigenetics of the generations to come? And why so if they were merely the extras and not the protagonists of their story – a colonial story, in this case.

This story of a Madame Butterfly all in filigree sees director Barbara Horáková take her first steps on the Romande stage, with accompanying video by photographer and filmmaker Diana Markosian – who illustrated the 2024-2025 season for the Grand Théâtre –. Theirs will be an intergenerational and intercontinental double narrative of the story of Cio Cio San, caught between traditions and her own expectations, as found in the most emotional pages the composer wrote. We’re reunited with Antonino Fogliani, out favourite specialist in the Italian repertoire, who conducts an exceptional cast, starting with Corinne Winters in the lead role – known on our stages for her unforgettable interpretations of Jenufa and Kat’a Kabanova, and now a world star –, alongside her compatriot Stephen Costello, with his powerful and elegant tenor, in the role of the maladroit American soldier, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton.

Tickets from CHF 17.-

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