Madam Butterfly (or Bangkok Butterfly)

OperaUpClose transplants Puccini's story of doomed love between an American naval lieutenant and his young Japanese bride from 1904 Nagasaki to 2011 Bangkok, Thailand. Here Butterfly is a Thai prostitute and Pinkerton is an American Airlines pilot on his first long-haul flight, whose head is turned on a drunken night at the city's seedy bars. Adam Spreadbury-Maher directs an intimate production, with a new orchestration for piano, viola and clarinet.