Madame Butterfly (1984)

A Japanese house, terrace, and a garden overlooking the harbor of Nagasaki, May, 1900.

Goro, marriage broker and local entrepreneur, is showing his client, Lieut. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, U.S.N., the house which the American has purchased for his bride-to-be, Cio-Cio-San, a geisha known to her friends as Madame Butterfly. Pinkerton is about to contract a marriage under the terms of Japanese law which holds that a husband’s absence for any extended period of time constitutes divorce. The first to arrive for the ceremony is the American Consul, Sharpless, who comes to warn Pinkerton of the utter sincerity of the fragile Butterfly, who has taken the irrevocable measure of renouncing her religion. Pinkerton callously refuses to take either his warning or the marriage seriously.

Butterfly arrives with her geisha friends, her many relatives, and the officials who are to perform the ceremony which will bind Butterfly and her house to Pinkerton for “nine hundred and ninety-nine years’.’ The marriage contract is signed, but the festivities are interrupted by the appearance of the Bonze, a powerful priest of the community and Butterfly’s uncle, who denounces her for having forsaken her religion. He and her horrified relatives curse her mercilessly, but they are driven away by the enraged Pinkerton.

As night falls, Pinkerton consoles his new bride and in spite of his cynicism finds himself becoming seriously involved with Butterfly, who, in the rapturous duet which closes the act, makes the great depth and simplicity of her love clear to all but Pinkerton himself.

Inside Butterfly’s House. Three years later.

Pinkerton has been recalled to America shortly after his marriage, vowing to return when the robins nested, but that is long past. Butterfly is living alone with her faithful servant Suzuki. Pinkerton’s money and Suzuki’s patience are virtually exhausted, yet Butterfly is supremely confident of her husband’s return, and has refused Goro’s repeated attempts to provide other suitors, insisting that she considers herself bound by the laws of her husband’s country.

Sharpless arrives to read a letter he has received from Pinkerton which tells of his imminent return. Butterfly’s joy prevents the Consul from delivering the real import of that letter, that Pinkerton is returning with a ” real American wife’.’ He tries to persuade her to accept the marriage proposal of a certain Prince Yamadori as Pinkerton may yet desert her. But she shows him Pinkerton’s son, whom she has named Sorrow until his father’s return when he will be renamed Joy. She asks what father could forget such a son, and Sharpless leaves, deeply moved.

The harbor cannon is heard, Butterfly recognizes Pinkerton’s ship, the ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and in a fever of excitement she and Suzuki decorate the house with flowers to honor his coming. As darkness falls, they await his arrival. Suzuki and the child soon fall asleep, as Butterfly alone watches through the night.

Inside the house. The next morning.

As dawn breaks, the calls of sailors are heard in the distant harbor. Butterfly still awaits Pinkerton’s arrival. Suzuki persuades her to take the child and rest, and she sadly complies.

Sharpless arrives with Pinkerton and Kate, his American wife. Pinkerton, at last recognizing the depth of Butterfly’s devotion, is filled with guilt and remorse. He gives Sharpless money to convey to Butterfly and rushes off, leaving Kate and Sharpless to face her. They beg Suzuki to prepare Butterfly for the truth, but, in the end, it is Kate who tells her of the marriage and their desire to adopt the child. Convinced finally of Kate’s sincerity, Butterfly agrees on the condition that Pinkerton himself shall come to take the child.

Left alone, she takes a last farewell of her son, and kills herself. Pinkerton and Sharpless burst into the room to find the little boy playing beside the dead body of his mother.