Madam Butterfly 1950Covent Garden Opera
Read more about the opera Madama Butterfly
The Australian dancer Robert Helpmann was a leading performer with the Sadler's Wells Ballet and regularly directed productions of dance. For him to direct an opera was less common. However this new staging of Butterfly was extremely successful. Sophie Fedorovitch's sets and costumes remained in regular use for some forty years.
The English translation by Rosie Helen Elkin was just as venerable, dating back to the American premiere in Washington DC (1906).
This cast, for Saturday evening 29 April 1950, is from a programme in the OperaScotland collection. There is one hand-written adjustment to the ensemble - the title role shows Blanche Turner replacing Doris Dorée.
Performance Cast
- Lieutenant F B Pinkerton U S Navy
- Goro marriage broker
- Suzuki Cio-Cio-San's servant
- Sharpless U S Consul in Nagasaki
- Cio-Cio-San known as Madam Butterfly
- Imperial Commissioner
- Official Registrar
- Bonze a priest, Cio-Cio-San's uncle
- Prince Yamadori
- Kate Pinkerton