Madama Butterfly

Baden-Baden, (DE) 2025
2025
Completed
Opera

This production of Madama Butterfly opens with a vision that looks beyond the final curtain of Puccini’s tragedy.

As part of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden , this production of Madama Butterfly opens with a vision that looks beyond the final curtain of Puccini’s tragedy.

A young American arrives in Nagasaki, guided only by a map and a few childhood sketches. In a quiet house from his earliest years, he is recognized by Suzuki—the loyal confidante of Madama Butterfly, his mother. Will she help him recover the threads of a forgotten past and lead him back to his origins?

A timeless story reimagined with cinematic depth, emotional intensity, and visual poetry.

Here, concept and creation come together—you can glimpse the journey from initial sketches to the full scale of the stage, where vision becomes reality.

Direction — Davide Livermore
Production Design — Giò Forma
Video — DWOK video
Costume — Mariana Fracasso
Light — Baldiserri Fiammetta

Singers in kimonos on stage before a huge projected American flag, a crumpled flag on the floor – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Render of the set: a Nagasaki street of shopfronts with illuminated signs and neon billboards above – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designChorus and soloists on the modern Japanese street set, lit by paper lanterns along the stage edge – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Render of the set: a lone figure in a frame of wooden posts before a blossoming tree and a red sun – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designSoprano in a white and red kimono among women with fans, before a projected red sun over misty mountains – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Silhouettes of two women before backlit shoji screens, a giant butterfly projected on the central panel – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designRender of the set: a dim Japanese house interior with backlit shoji screens and two figures in silhouette – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Render of a figure in a kimono in a glass room, with a torn American flag drifting underwater around it – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designSingers in kimonos on stage before a huge projected American flag, a crumpled flag on the floor – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Render of the set: a woman in a kimono amid rows of glowing paper lanterns before painted gold screens – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designThree women kneeling on a petal-strewn stage, framed by a grid of hanging lanterns and a lit pavilion – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design
Render of the set with shoji screens painted with chrysanthemums and two figures standing at the centre – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set designFull chorus in kimonos across the stage before glass screens showing a red sun over ink mountains – Madama Butterfly at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany, 2025 – opera set design