Madama Butterfly

I'm another one who saw this (also without surtitles) as a six year old and it started a lifelong love of music and opera. Just to add to those that said most Japanese don't believe this - the story of Butterfly was based on a real event not long after the opening up of Japan. This version is embellished with a ten minute intro that sets the scene and then the opera begins. There are so many lovely touches - chocolate box colours and a lovely Japanese actress playing Butterfly and always the heart wrenching music. It really has something special all of its own. Little wonder it has so many fans around the world even though it was made in 1954.

Other purists will note the score has been quite heavily cut- but even this is forgivable and even perhaps part of its charm when it serves as an introduction for first timers - it remains something unique and wonderful.

This stand out filmed opera was released in the US with an added English narrator who talks at length, at first setting the stage for the story,then periodically intruding during the course of the opera to explain what is going on, occasionally speaking over the singing, as an alternative to subtitling all of the lyrics which could have been distracting. While this strategy allows the listener to bask in the gorgeous music, it can be annoying.But it kind of fits the authentically recreated Oriental settings and costumes as the Japanese cinema long had a tradition of off screen commentators, the Benshi. Director Carmine Gallone was a veteran of filmed classical music performance and brought his mastery from years of experience to this crowning achievement.The opera is beautifully sung,orchestrated and recorded.The mise en scene is striking and the Technicolor lensing by Claude Renoir is breathtaking.And best of all, the coproduction allows all the Asian roles to be played by Asian actors (,while the singing is dubbed in by Italians) so the embarrassment of watching white performers doing yellow face is completely avoided.

This is one of the most beautiful films ever made of an opera. Everyone knows the story of Cio Cio San, the Japanese geisha who braves social rejection to marry American naval officer B. F. Pinkerton, only to be abandoned and rejected by him. After he returns with his "real" American wife to claim the child, the devastated girl chooses suicide to save her honor. Giacomo Puccini's score is always moving, but this production really looks right and shines beautifully especially when seen in an original IB Technicolor print. I remember first seeing it as a teenager and being turned on to opera as a result. Cio Cio San looks thoroughly convincing as played by Kaoru Yachigusa. Her singing is dubbed by Orietta Moscucci. Pinkerton is played by Nicola Filacuridi and sung by Giovanni Campora. The chorus and orchestra of the Rome Opera are led by Oliviero de Fabritiis. It is a version of the opera that should be much more widely seen today. I believe the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California owns a 35mm print, perhaps the only copy in America.

I love the opera, while the story is not always plausible it is nevertheless moving and the music is gorgeous as is typical of Puccini. This 1954 film, despite some of the cutting of the score, is lovely, and as fond I am of the 1983 production and the 1975 Jean Pierre-Ponnelle film this Madame Butterfly is one of favourites. The scenery is magnificent, the costumes are stunning and the photography is simply beautiful, so visually this Madame Butterfly is a feast. The gorgeous music is played and conducted with pathos and commitment and the dubbed singing is beguiling. Kaoru Yachigusa is perfect in the title role, and Nicola Filacuridi's Pinkerton is an ideal match for her. Suzuki and Sharpless are excellent as well. Overall, a truly lovely Madame Butterfly. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Neither movie nor opera is this. This is just a film explaining about a queer story in Japan, which was dreamed out for an opera by a foreigner but no Japanese thinks is true. Kaoru Yachigusa, playing a part of Madame Butterfly, is very pretty and Japanese-like. She may be the only profit you can get from this poor film.