PUCCINI'S MANUSCRIPT. FIRST SKETCH FOR THE END OF THE FIRST ACT OF "MADAMA BUTTERFLY"

Puccini was at Rome for a time soon after his complete recovery from his accident, and took special pains to get up the local colour for his new work. For this he invoked the aid of the Japanese ambassadress, and obtained some actual Japanese melodies from a friend of hers in Paris. Of music there is no lack in Japan, but by the Japanese themselves it is never written down. Like the troubadours of old, the musicians, who are a sort of guild, hand the traditional songs and dances on from father to son.

Madama Butterfly was produced at the Scala, Milan, on February 17, 1904. Canpanini was the conductor, and it was cast as follows:

ButterflyStorchio.
SuzukiGiaconia.
PinkertonZenatello.
SharplessDe Luca.
GoroPini-Corsi.
Zio BonzoVenturini.
YakusidéWulmann.

Although Puccini was at the very zenith of his popularity a strange thing happened with the first production of this new opera, and the composer went through a similar experience to that which Wagner had to suffer when Tannhäuser was first given in Paris. The audience simply howled with derision. For the reason of this it is difficult to account. The storm of disapproval began after the first few bars of the opening act. Puccini, very quietly, took matters into his own hands, and at the end of the performance thanked the conductor for his trouble and marched off with the score. The second or any subsequent performance was therefore an impossibility.

He tells an amusing story of a little incident occasioned by the fiasco, which, he says, brought him at least some little consolation, and atoned for much disillusion. A bookkeeper at Genoa, an ardent admirer of Puccini, indignant at what he considered the outrageous treatment—for it was nothing else—meted out to his favourite composer, went to the City Hall to register the birth of a daughter. When the clerk asked the name of the child, he replied, "Butterfly." "What!" said the official, "do you want to brand your child for life with the memory of a failure?" But the father persisted, and so as Butterfly the child was entered. A little time after this Puccini heard of the incident, and rather touched with the simple devotion, asked the father to bring the child to see him. On the appointed day Puccini looked out of the window and saw a long stream of people approaching his front door. Not only did the father bring little "Butterfly," but, as in the first act of the opera from which her name was derived, her mother, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, as well—in fact the whole surviving members of the genealogical tree. Puccini laughingly said at the end of a trying afternoon that it was the most gigantic reception he had ever held.

The despised opera was given in what is known as the present revised version at Brescia, on 28 May of the same year, the Butterfly being Krusceniski, and Bellati the Sharpless, Zenatello being again the Pinkerton. Strange to say, it proved entirely to the taste of those who saw it. The revision, as a matter of fact, amounted to very little. It was played in two acts instead of one, with the intermezzo dividing two scenes in the second act, making it, in reality, in three acts, and the tenor air was added in the last scene.

No more striking proof of Puccini's popularity could be found than the fact that the new opera quickly came to London. It was seen at Covent Garden on July 10, 1905, Campanini being the conductor, and was cast as follows:

ButterflyDestinn.
SuzukiLejeune.
PinkertonCaruso.
SharplessScotti.
GoroDufriche.
Zio BonzoCotreuil.
YakusidéRossi.