Madama Butterfly: Un bel di vedremo (Act Two)

At this stage in the second act of Puccini’s “Japanese tragedy” Madama Butterfly – which was first performed in Milan in 1904 – Butterfly is still confident that Lieutenant Pinkerton, her American sailor husband, will return to her and their little house in Nagasaki. Bearing in mind that he has been away for two or three years,that he knows nothing of the son she is bringing up for him and that the funds he provided are all but gone, it requires a vast investment of faith on her part to sustain her belief in him. However, there is no more convincing expression of a wife’s trust in her husband than Cio-Cio-San’s aria “Un bel di vedremo” (One fine day) which – with its fervent melodic line, its intimate detail as well as its finely wrought emotional climax – is far more than Pinkerton deserves.