Madama Butterfly

Cio-Cio-San looks out to sea and waits for her beloved husband to return. For years. The beginning of the second act of Madama Butterfly is one of the most touching opera scenes ever written by Giacomo Puccini. It culminates in the iconic soprano aria "Un bel dì, vedremo", in which Cio-Cio-San imagines the long-awaited day: The white ship becomes visible on the horizon, it enters the harbor, the cannons thunder - he is back, he calls her name, he wants nothing but to be with her!
The man in question, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the navy, had left Cio-Cio-San shortly after the wedding. Who would have thought that Cio-Cio-San, known as "Butterfly", would be right and that he would actually be back one day? But the dream turns into a nightmare: Pinkerton hasn't come for her, but because he wants to take their child back home. Cio-Cio-San's world falls apart ...
For the composition of Madama Butterfly, Puccini intensively studied various styles of Japanese music. He needed this as a sound backdrop for the story set in Japan. At the same time, it enabled him to expand the boundaries of his own musical language, which was influenced by Western tradition, and to experiment with new sounds unheard of in the opera of his time - an artistic departure for new shores.