Madama Butterfly/Madamu Batafurai - Transpositions of a 'Japanese Tragedy' (Hardcover)

Puccini's famous but controversial Madama Butterfly reflects a practice of 'temporary marriage' between Western men and Japanese women in nineteenth-century treaty ports. Groos' book identifies the plot's origin in an eye-witness account and traces its transmission via John Luther Long's short story and David Belasco's play. Archival sources, many unpublished, reveal how Puccini and his librettists imbued the opera with differing constructions of the action and its heroine. Groos's analysis suggests how they constructed a 'contemporary' music-drama with multiple possibilities for interpreting the misalliance between a callous American naval officer and an impoverished fifteen-year-old geisha, providing a more complex understanding of the heroine's presumed 'marriage'. As an orientalizing tragedy with a racially inflected representation of Cio-Cio-San, the opera became a lightning rod for identity politics in Japan, while also stimulating decolonizing transpositions into indigenous theatre traditions such as Bunraku puppet theatre and Takarazuka musicals.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	2023
Authors:	Arthur Groos
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	300
ISBN-13:	978-1-00-925067-2
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Theatre, drama > Opera Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles > 20th century music Books > Music > Western music, periods & styles > 20th century music
LSN:	1-00-925067-1
Barcode:	9781009250672

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!