CHICAGO—With the kind of delicious, romantic music that you can feel down your spine, “Madama Butterfly” is such a stunning opera that even with a director’s added twist, it can’t be dampened. The glory of Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece rings eternal. That’s the case with the reimagined “Butterfly” presentation at Chicago’s Lyric Opera of Chicago.
With an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseepe Giacosa, the dramatic plot of “Butterfly,” which premiered in Milan’s La Scala opera house in 1904, remains the same. Adapted by David Belasco into a play (1900) from a short story by John Luther Long (1898), the opera is about a young Japanese geisha, Cio Cio San, who falls in love with American naval officer Lt. Pinkerton.
