Day 3

     The Assignment was to watch an opera from before 1920. Lucky for me, the only opera I've ever seen, Madama Butterfly, was composed by Giacomo Puccini in 1904. Nevertheless, I watched the opera again to fully capture the message(s), explicit and subliminal. The opera was tragic. Act 1 portrayed a Japanese geisha who meets an american sailor, Captain Pinkerton. She is the personified symbol of a butterfly; delicate, passive, sweet, naïve, and short lived. She is the quintessence of the ideal Japanese woman. Unfortunately, her sweet and sensitive personality does not serve to her benefit when Captain Pinkerton leaves her impregnated and with no intent to return. Madama Butterfly's unyielding faith of his return causes her to go mad. She becomes depressed because no one believes in her obsession that Captain Pinkerton will return for her and make her his bride. Years later he returns but it is not for Madama Butterfly. He, Captain Pinkerton, arrives with an American wife and takes the Madama Butterfly's young son. She is heart broken and realizes his true intention from the beginning. Her reaction is just as extreme as her previous love obsession and she concludes the opera with the taking of her own life. As the audience it was heart-rendering to see the protagonist live a tragedy and ultimately die for love. The opera does an excellent job of encompassing and portraying the desperation for love and affection of a woman in the Nineteenth Century.