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The Real History of Opera 1/4 Madama Butterfly
Tuesday 11 October 2005 13:30-14:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Repeated: Saturday 15 October 2005 15:30-16:00 (Radio 4 FM)
Had it happened 100 years later, the events behind Madama Butterfly would have dominated Huw's 10 O'Clock News headlines and caused a major diplomatic incident between America and Japan.
A visiting American naval captain procures a 15-year-old local Japanese girl for what is little more than casual sex on a long term contract. She becomes pregnant and, with the connivance of the diplomatic service, the baby is removed from the care of its mother, and the girl commits suicide.
Edwards finds that Puccini's Madama Butterfly is indeed based on fact, but rather than cause political outrage when it was premiered in 1908, it just pandered to the smutty fantasies of European and American men.
With contributions from Puccini experts Alexandra Wilson, Conrad Wilson, and Japanese historian Naoko Shimazu, Huw Edwards digs behind the 19th and early 20th century willow patterned façade so embraced and loved by European society to find a boiling political and militaristic upheaval completely ignored by the composer, but which would soon rock the world order.
Followed by News.
