Summer Opera - Madame Butterfly

With his singular style, a blend of sculpted lighting, minimalist gestures, and elongated time, he revolutionized the art of stage direction, creating captivating spectacles imbued with boundless poetry. To witness a work by Robert Wilson is to experience a total, hypnotic, and profoundly sensory art form. For the 26th Summer Opera Festival, the Paris Opera presents a recording of his masterful Madame Butterfly: his unique vision of this great operatic work continues to move audiences more than 30 years after its creation. Synopsis: Poor Madame Butterfly! This fifteen-year-old geisha has renounced her family and Japanese traditions for love of an American lieutenant who abandons her. From this classic theme of a seduced and abandoned woman, Giacomo Puccini crafts an opera of lush orchestration and ardent lyricism. Created in 1904 at La Scala in Milan, its score, imbued with oriental influences, powerfully conveys the contrast between the brutality of Officer Pinkerton and the vulnerability of Butterfly, as fragile as a butterfly's wings. For Robert Wilson, this Japanese tragedy became the ideal setting for the formalism he championed. Far removed from traditional fans or cherry blossoms, the director employs stylized acting and a bare stage space, allowing the melodic lines to blossom in all their purity. A co-production of the Paris Opera and François Roussillon et Associés, with the participation of France Télévisions, and with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée, the Orange Foundation (patron of the Paris Opera's audiovisual broadcasts), and the Cercle POP. Practical information The broadcast on Sunday, July 26th starts at 8:30 pm, and the public will be welcomed from 8 pm.