Madama Butterfly

Notes on the Libretto

The lineation of the text follows as much as practicable that of the libretto published for America (G. Ricordi & Company, 14 East 43d Street, New York; Italian text copyright 1904; English text copyright 1906; French text copyright 1906). Exceptions naturally occur where the set text differs from the published text of the libretto. Where libretto text has been omitted the remaining text usually maintains the original lineation; for example:
E li prende,
li avvolge nel bianco mantel.
E via se li reca al diletto,
suo nido, negli alti reami.
becomes
E li prende,
e li avvolge in un bianco mantel.
E via se li reca
negli alti reami,
Occasionally, however, the intervening unset text is simply ignored; thus, the libretto's:
Ah!... quei viottoli
irti di ciottoli
m'hanno sfiaccato!
is rendered as
Ah!... quei ciottoli
mi hanno sfiaccato!
rather than
Ah!... quei
ciottoli
mi hanno sfiaccato!
Where the scores include additional or modified text I have been guided in part by meter and rhyme, in part by following the musical line, and in part by a desire to retain repeated words and interjections in the original line so as not to break up the sense. Occasionally re-lineation is unavoidable, for example,
No. E nato quando già
egli stava in quel suo grande paese.
becomes
No. No.
[con passione]
È nato quand'egli sta va
in quel suo gran paese.

The most important exception to the preservation of poetic lineation is for stage instructions, which are inserted in the text as close as practicable to the point at which they occur in the score, and which are generally printed on separate lines, except for very short instructions. Also, extra line breaks are occasionally inserted where required for the sake of denoting the commencement or termination of sections of parallel text sung in ensemble.

Line breaks in the translations are placed as close as possible (without hyphenation) to the points where the breaks in the Italian text occur in the score, regardless of sense, rhyme, or meter. The capitalization of words intended to start lines in the published libretto, however, is preserved. Thus:

That your mother should take
you on her shoulder, And forth should wander in rain
and tempest Through the town,
seeking to earn enough For food and clothing.
is given as the essentially syllabic translation of:
Che tua madre dovrà
prenderti in braccio ed alla pioggia e al vento
andar per la città
a guadagnarti il pane e il vestimento.
(the syllables to-an of vento andar are sung on one note, the same note as the English and), even though the English version in the published libretto clearly runs:
That your mother should take you on her shoulder
And forth should wander in rain and tempest
Through the town, seeking to earn enough
For food and clothing.

© Richard S. Bogart 1999

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Monday, 08-Dec-2003 21:37:34 PST