Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Puccini: Madama Butterfly

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Delayed by a Winter that wouldn't quit, it's finally cherry blossom time: time to listen once again to that all-time popular favorite of operas, Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1904), with its lovely "flower duet" for Cio-Cio San and Suzuki. There have been many wonderful Cio-Cio Sans in the history of recorded sound. The Irish soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan was cast in the role for the first electric recording of the entire opera in 1929.

One of the most beloved of Butterflys was the Italian soprano Renata Scotto in the mid twentieth century. The stereo recording of Butterfly she made in 1966, the one with Barbirolli conducting, was the first of two she made for EMI. It was originally issued stateside on Angel 33 1/3 rpm LP discs. There's a copy in our station's classical record library that I have drawn upon twice for broadcast, first way back on Sunday, December 7,1984 and then more lately on Sunday, March 30, 2008.

Another admirable soprano of recent times, the Ukrainian Svetlana Katchour recorded Butterfly in its full 1904 La Scala version for the Naxos label, capturing the sound of a production in the German city of Bremen. I aired the Naxos CD's on Sunday, September 8, 2002.

Today I dig back into our now-historic WWUH classical LP collection to present you with the American soprano Anna Moffo's take on Cio-Cio San in a 1963 recording for RCA Victor. This recording gives us Puccini's complete score of the work. Essentially a studio recording, it was made in the Rome Opera House. Erich Leinstorf was conducting. The Met's Rosalind Elias, an American mezzo, sang the role of Suzuki. Pinkerton was the distinguished Italian tenor Cesare Valetti. I employ those vintage RCA platters.