Elena Borin

Japan, early twentieth century. U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker. The broker, Goro, has procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. He is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. In a quiet moment, Cio-Cio-San shows her bridegroom her few earthly treasures and tells him of her intention to embrace his Christian faith. The Imperial Commissioner performs the wedding ceremony, and the guests toast the couple. The celebration is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San's uncle, a Buddhist priest, who bursts in, cursing the girl for having renounced her ancestors' religion. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, her husband dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.

Jérusalem pleure la défaite qui met son sort entre les mains de Nabucco, le roi de Babylone. Ismaël les avertit que ce dernier s'approche du Temple. Il reste seul avec Ferena, la fille du roi babylonien, prise en otage par les Hébreux, et lui avoue son amour. Or la soeur de Ferena, Abigaille, aime aussi Ismaël. Dans cette nouvelle mise en scène, Arnaud Bernard replace l'intrigue dans le cadre esthétique du Risorgimento italien. Lors de sa création à la Scala de Milan en 1842, Nabucco triompha immédiatement. Dans une Italie alors en proie aux mouvements nationalistes, le public s'identifie immédiatement aux Hébreux retenus en captivité à Babylone. Le choeur des esclaves «Va, pensiero» devient ainsi l'un des airs les plus célèbres de l'histoire de l'art lyrique.

This new Dynamic opera was performed in Donizetti's native city of Bergamo, during the most important world festival dedicated to the Italian composer. The opera is set in a rural environment and the action takes place in a country farm. It is a brilliant comedy with many points of contact with semi-serious operas. The choice of this subject must have been strongly influenced by the successes of Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula. The music is folksy and the melodic writing frank and straightforward with a broad variety of passages of high technical content and more elegiac in character; such is the case of the most famous piece in the whole opera, the aria "Una furtiva lagrima", which is also the leitmotiv of the soundtrack of the 2005 film Match Point, directed by Woody Allen.