The History of "Madam Butterfly."

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 25, 22 June 1910, Page 14

The History of "Madam Butterfly."

Opera Written a Crippled Composei —Howled Off the Stage in Milan.

ADAM BUTTERFLY” has a fl I ■ singularly interesting history / in the way it came to be writ- / ten. The composer had a good deal of it planned out by the end of 1902. He let it be known that “the theme has a sentiment, a passion which veritably haunts me. I have it constantly ringing in my head.” But he had done practically nothing towards putting it on to manuscript, and then came a terrible accident, which nearly cost him his life.

Puccini, who was always addicted to sport and an open-air life, went in for motoring in the year 1901. His accident, by which he broke his leg and suffered a great deal of pain and anxiety owing to the difficulty of the uniting of the bone, took place in the February of 1903. He had left his beloved Torre del Lago and gone into Lucca for a change of air and place, owing to a bad cold and sore throat from which he could not get free. One of Puccini’s characteristics is a certain obstinacy which very often leads him to do things in direct opposition to anything like a command. The fact that his doctor had told him not to go out in his car at night was sufficient, of course, for “Mr James”—

Puccini is invariably addressed by those round him as “Sor Giacomo”—to decide on a little evening trip; and he and his wife and son with the chauffeur started off in the country. About five miles from Lucca there is a little place called Vignalo, where is a sharp turn in the road by a bridge. Going at full speed, this was not noticed in the dark, and as the car turned, it went over an embankment and fell nearly thirty feet into a field. Mdme. Puccini and Antonio were unhurt, but the chauffeur had a fractured thigh and Puccini a fractured leg. Unfortunately, Puccini was pinned under the car, stunned and bruised by the fall; and', moreover, suffered considerably from the -.fumes of the petrol. A doctor, luckily, was staying at a cottage near by, and- he was able to render first aid. Afterwards another doctor was sent for from Lucca, and it was decided to make a litter and carry Puccini to Torre del Lago by boat, as owing to the inflammation the leg was not able to be set immediately. Puccini’s great friend, Marquis Ginori, went with him on the boat; and, although in great pain, the invalid found himself regret-

ting that on the journey so many wild duck flew within range, just at the time, as he laughingly remarked, he could not shoot them. Three days after his arrival home, Colzi, a famous specialist from Florence, came and set the leg.| The actual uniting of the bone was a long and tedious process, which spread over eight months, and Puccini was not really able to walk again properly until he hadi been to Paris —where his “Tosca” was produced at the Opera Comique—and undergone a special treatment at the hands of a French specialist. It was during the recovery from his motor accident he was wheeled to the piano each day and planned out “Madam Butterfly, although the actual writing down of the melodies and the general work of construction was done, of course, away from the instrument. Puccini was at Rome for a time soon after his complete recovery from his accident, and took special pa-ins to get up the local colour for his new work. For this he invoked the aid of the Japanese ambassadress, and obtained some actual Japanese melodies from a friend of hers in Paris. Of music there is no lack in Japan, but -by the Japanese themselves it is never written down. Like the troubadours of old, the musicians, who are a sort of guild, hand the traditional songs and dances on from father to son. “Madam Butterfly” was produced at the -Scala, Milan, on February 17, 1904. Campanini was the conductor. Although Puccini was at the very zenith of his popularity, a strange thing happened with the first production of this new opera, and the composer went through a similar experience to that which Wagner had to suffer when “Tannhauser” was first given in Paris. The audience simply howled with derision. For the reason of this it is difficult- to account. The storm of disapproval began after the first few bars of the opening act. Puccini, very quietly, took matters into his own hands, and at ,the end of the. performance, thanked the conductor for-his trouble, and marched off with the score. The second or any subsequent performance was therefore an impossibility. He tells an amusing story of a little incident occasioned ‘by the fiasco, which, he says, brought him at least some little consolations, and atoned for much dis-

illusion. A bookkeeper at Genoa, an ardent admirer of Puccini, indignant at what he considered the outrageous treatment —for it was nothing else—meted out to his favourite composer, went to the City Hall to register the birth of a daughter. When the clerk asked the name of the child, he replied, “Butterfly.” “What!” said the official, “do you want to brand your child for life with the memory of a failure?” But the father persisted, and so as Butterfly the child was entered. A little time after this Puccini heard of the incident, and rather touched with the simple devotion, asked the falther to bring the child to see him. On the appointed day Puccini looked out of the window and saw a long stream of people approaching hid front door. Not only did the father bring little “Butterfly,” but, as in the first act of the opera from which her name was derived, her mother, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, as well)—in fact, the whole surviving members of the genealogical tree. Puceini laughingly said at the end of a trying afternoon that it was the most gigantic reception he had ever held.

'Die despised opera was given in what is known as the present revised version at Brescia, on 28th May of the same year, the Butterfly being Krusceniski, and Bellati the Sharpless, Zenatello being again the Pinkerton. Strange to say, it proved-entirely to the taste of ithose who saw it. The revision, as a matter of fact, amounted to very little. It was played in two acts instead of one, with the intermezzo dividing two scenes in the second act, making it, in reality, in three acts, and the tenor air was added in the last scene.

No more striking proof of Puccini’s popularity could be found that the fact that the new opera quickly came to London. It was seen at Covent Garden on July 1(5, 1905, Campanini again being the conductor. It has since had many performances in London and Now York, besides being sung in English through the counties by the Moody-MannerS Opera Company. Both "Madam Butterfly” and “L» Boheme” arc the most successful operas of the dav and their popularity continues unabated.