We would like to inform you, that the performance of the opera Madama Butterfly will be carried out in Cankar’s Hall (Cankarjev dom). We require a change of tickets, which you can do at Križanke Box Office from 13th July on. Ticket exchange is also possible at Cankar’s Hall (Cankarjev dom), on 14th July, from 7.00 pm.

• SNG Maribor’s first performance of the opera for ten years
• Madama Butterfly is today considered a classic work of the operatic repertoire
• Puccini was the first Western composer to present the world of Japanese culture in music
• The Broadway musical Miss Saigon was based on Madama Butterfly

SNG Maribor Symphonic Orchestra

SNG Maribor Ballet ensemble

Conductor: Stefano Romani
Stage Director: Pier Francesco Maestrini

Music: Giacomo Puccini 
Libretto: Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa

Asstant director: Tim Ribič
Set designer: Nicolas Boni
Costume designer: Luca Dall`Alpi
Costume design assistants: Suzana Rengeo and Simona Toš
Chorus master: Zsuzsa Budavari Novak
Concertmaster: Saša Olenjuk
Light design: Bruno Ciulli

Cast:
Cio-Cio-san: Rebeka Lokar
Suzuki, her servant: Irena Petkova
Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, American naval lieutenant: Renzo Zulian
Sharpless,  American consul in Nagasaki: Jaki Jurgec
Goro, marriage broker: Dušan Topolovec
Prince Yamadori: Bogdan Stopar
Bonzo, Cio-Cio-san’s uncle: Alfonz Kodrič
Jakuside, Cio-Cio-san’s uncle: Jernej Luketič
Kate Pinkerton: Klavdija Kuzkin
Imperial Commisioner: Sebastijan Čelofiga
Official Registrar: Bojan Hinteregger
Cio-Cio-san’s mother: Dada Kladenik
Cio-Cio-san’s cousin: Lucija Krašovec
Cio-Cio-san’s son: Luka Aleksandar Jovičić

By 1904, the year he created Madama Butterfly, which went on to become one of the world’s best-known operas, Giacomo Puccini was recognised as the most important Italian opera composer of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Although a number of corrections were made to the score following the premiere, the composer considered the opera to be his best and most modern work. In it, the master of verismo skilfully blended romanticism and exoticism, pouring his heart and soul into the music in a way he had never done before and never would again. The essence of the opera is a tragic love story set in Japan, based on David Belasco’s dramatisation of the short story Madame Butterfly, which Puccini saw at a London theatre. Puccini worked on the opera with the gifted librettists Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, with whom he had previously collaborated on Manon Lescaut, La bohème and Tosca. The opera includes what is perhaps the most popular aria in the soprano repertoire, “Un bel dì, vedremo” (“One fine day we’ll see”), sung by Cio-Cio San. The young Japanese woman’s love for Lt Pinkerton of the United States Navy has prompted her to forsake her people and her religion and convert to Christianity in order to marry him. After waiting for three years for her love to return, her infant son by her side, she finally understands that she has been deceived and betrayed.
After an absence of more than ten years, Madama Butterfly returns in a new production by the SNG Opera and Ballet Maribor, directed by the Italian opera director Pier Francesco Maestrini.