Madama Butterfly

Second clue.

They used to call me Madam Butterfly.

Now it's just Madam...

There must be...

So, paved the way for, okay, let me not say that.

now i'm getting jd i'm getting jd okay but early in her career she was a social worker and a school teacher in um new york city began to grow in popularity in europe um as a singer which uh led her to debut with the met in 1959 um with a minor role and then a few years later with a major role um After that, her career began to pick up, um, and she has, uh, performed in many popular operas such as Aida, Madama Butterfly, um, and lead roles at that.

She was, um, uh in in those operas she also starred in three season opening nights in the 1970s um and she also again performed frequently uh throughout europe at the royal opera house opera national de paris prague national opera um and uh she retired from her public performances in 1989 so shout out to her and her family How old is she? 90.

Oh,

They used

to call me Madam Butterfly.

Madam? But now, oh, sorry.

Okay, no, I added a word.

They used to call me Madam Butterfly.

Now it's just Madam.

Oh, Madam.

He went through any number of librettists in that process, but he got a good result.

But this Illica and Giacosa team, these are also the men who were the librettists and worked together on the other two Puccini operas you are most likely to find around the country, Tosca and Madame Butterfly.

So yeah, a lot of respect for each other.

Sometimes someone can be demanding and just irritating, but sometimes they can actually know what's

And when the CIA was about to send her a coded shortwave message, it would signal her with music on the radio.

sometimes a waltz, sometimes an aria from Puccini's Madam Butterfly.

Fidel Castro's sister in Havana waiting for Madam Butterfly to come on the radio so she'd know the CIA was calling.

Folks, you can't write this stuff.

So the CIA has people inside Cuba.

We'll talk about this a little bit more later, but her recording history doesn't come anywhere close to the span of roles that she's then asked to do from, like, the mid-60s into the 70s.

She does the Balo Emilia, she does the Bocanegra Emilia, Madame Butterfly, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Lady Macbeth, the Trovatore Leonora, the Forza Leonora, Liu, Torundot, Maddalena from Andrea Chenier, Santuzza, Joconda.

She's the first Black person ever to sing the role of Elsa in Lohengrin.

Wow.

She's so down-to-earth, she never puts on airs, she is so with it.

Throughout her entire career, she is the fastest person on the buzzer, the fastest finger on the buzzer, and just always has a line prepared.

And you like you read back some of these and you're like, oh, she called herself Madame Butterball when she was talking about Madame Butterfly.

Like, good one.

We get most of our opera through the television, which is very classy.

But I think Glyndebourne does very modern operas, don't they? We watched Madame Butterfly, sort of done in the 1950s.

You know, like I get the feeling that they are high art and on a budget and seeking to meet the modern crowd.

I think I'm very, very spoiled because I've been to Lyman quite a few times, but only because I've had the press tickets because it's so expensive.

After that date, I was lucky enough to get press tickets, but it's wildly expensive, and it literally breaks my heart that people can't access amazing art because it's inaffordable.

But with opera, I worry on the telly.

that it's such a compromise of the real experience that it might put people off who would otherwise love opera but i will say that during lockdown my best friend because me and him love opera together we did watch some operas together actually which was quite funny so we watched like madame butterfly and we even took a break halfway through and had like some picnic in our respective living rooms so we were on zoom this watching the opera um But it's because to me, part of the thing that gets you about opera, like all art, like the theatre, is, you know, something, someone coughing or it starts raining outside and you can hear the noise or someone shuffles next to you or maybe that day the actor's behaving a bit.

And not to mention the acoustics.