Concertante: Kirill Petrenko with Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”

For her it is true love, for him just an affair. Giacomo Puccini transformed John Luther Long’s 1898 story of teenaged geisha Cio-Cio-San and cavalier American naval lieutenant Pinkerton into one of the most popular operas of all time – and a commentary on colonialism that remains ripe for re-examination. His music reflects both the orientalism of his time and the sentimentality of late verismo. After leading staged performances in Baden-Baden, K...