CONDUCTOR:

Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli / Bassem Akiki

DIRECTOR:

Kirsten Dehlholm

CO-DIRECTOR:

Jon R. Skulberg

SET DESIGN:

Maja Ziska

LIGHT DESIGN:

Jesper Kongshaug

COSTUME DESIGN:

Henrik Vibskov

COLLABORATION CHOREOGRAPHY:

Kenzo Kusuda

COLLABORATION PUPPET:

Ulrike Quade Company

DRAMATURGY:

Krystian Lada

PRODUCTION :

La Monnaie / De Munt, Brussels




Madama Butterfly is known and beloved in the classic opera world. A new interpretation must be found. In Hotel Pro Forma’s staging, Madama Butterfly becomes a ghost story with the Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San as an old ghost, a storyteller who has to tell her tale over and over.

The singer telling the story, sings from the proscenium, while a life size puppet on stage creates a mute construction of her short life. With the puppet’s opportunity of creating stylized expression of emotions and the pure musical performance of the narrating voice, the story's emotional layers are enhanced.

Other parts of the story’s underlying tones are made visible when black ninjas become threatening ancestors, and when ominous phenomena pop up. Madame Butterfly's death cannot be changed, but the story takes another twist at the end.

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