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Opera Day
"One fine day we'll notice
a thread of smoke arising
on the sea, in the far horizon,
and then the ship appearing;
Then the trim white vessel
glides into the harbour,
thunders forth her cannon."
~ "Un bel di, vedremo" English translation, Madama Butterfly, Giacomo Puccini, 1907
Puccini’s tragic opera, Madama Butterfly, is one of the most beloved and well-known operas, with a fascinating Scottish connection woven into its storyline. The opera follows Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton, a naval officer aboard the USS Lincoln, stationed in Nagasaki. With the assistance of Goro, an unscrupulous Japanese marriage broker, he entices the young, impoverished, and fatherless 15-year-old Butterfly into a temporary union. Believing their marriage to be legal, Butterfly converts to Christianity, forsaking her Buddhist faith, only to be disowned by her family and friends.
Despite his initial attraction to her—and against the warnings of the U.S. consul—Pinkerton abandons Butterfly, assuring her he will return to take her to America. Left waiting for three long years, she secretly gives birth to his child, enduring hardship with only her loyal servant, Suzuki, by her side. When Pinkerton finally returns, it is not to reunite with Butterfly but to claim their son—alongside his American wife, Kate. Resigned to what she believes is a better future for her child, Butterfly agrees to relinquish him but, in a final act of despair, takes her own life to spare him the shame of abandonment.
The opera's story originates from a short tale by American lawyer and writer John Luther Long, drawn from his sister’s recollections of her time in Japan as the wife of a Methodist missionary. More recently, an author has suggested that Long’s narrative may have been loosely inspired by the birth mother of Tomisaburō, the British-Japanese adopted son of Scottish entrepreneur Thomas Blake Glover and his Japanese wife. Known as the Scottish Samurai, Glover also served as the inspiration for Jamie McFay, a character in James Clavell’s novel Gai-Jin.
The opera’s themes of doomed love and fleeting beauty are echoed in the tartan inspired by Madama Butterfly. The bold contrast of black, white, and red reflects the traditional colors of a geisha—black for her hair, white for her powdered skin, and red for her painted lips. The deep, blood-red pivot embodies Butterfly’s tragic final act. Soft pinks and khaki green evoke the fading cherry blossoms, a poignant symbol of life’s impermanence. Meanwhile, the interplay of black, a color of mourning, and white, which in Japan signifies joyous occasions, underscores the opera’s heartbreaking duality—love and loss intertwined. ❤️ 🖤 🤍 ❤️ 🦋 🎭 🎶 🏴 🇯🇵
February 8th is Opera Day, a celebration of drama set to music, popular since the 16th century.
This tartan commemorates Giacomo Puccini's beautiful and heartbreaking opera Madama Butterfly. The tartan, designed with Japanese inspired geometry, is a tribute to the opera, a doomed love story set in a Japanese village in Nagasaki at the turn of the century.
The tartan acknowledges over 100 years of performances, portraying the tragic and sorrowful tale of Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly), a beautiful and fragile young Geisha bride who kills herself after abandonment and betrayal by her husband, a US naval lieutenant temporarily stationed in Japan.
Released in 1907, the opera has long been associated with the famous Scottish merchant Sir Thomas Blake Glover. Born in Fraserburgh, Glover was a key figure in the industrialisation and modernisation of Japan, and his common-law marital relationship with the Japanese woman Awajiya Tsuru, through her son by another father, is said to have been the inspiration for Madama Butterfly.
Glover at one time was the most famous foreigner in Japan, known as the "Scottish Samurai."
The tragic story follows Cio-Cio-San ( Butterfly), a Japanese geisha who marries an American naval officer named Pinkerton, only to be abandoned by him, after which she bears his son. She waits for Pinkerton faithfully and though he returns three years later, he now has an American wife, and wants to take the boy back to America. Butterfly's humiliation is too much to bear, and as she attempts to commit suicide her boy is pushed into the room to distract and stop her. Butterfly bids a farewell to her son and sends him off to play. As she stabs herself, Pinkerton's voice is heard far off in the distance calling Butterfly's name.
From the official register's notes:
"The tartan's colours and geometry represent both the Geisha and the Japanese Cherry Blossom. Colours: black, white and red together represent the traditional colours of the Geisha, black for the hair, white for the powdered skin and red for the painted lips (the solid red pivot importantly symbolising the blood of Butterfly's suicidal death strike). The two shades of pink with the muted khaki green represent withering cherry blossom (in Japanese culture the transient nature of cherry blossom is richly symbolic, the intense beauty and abrupt death, being associated with mortality). The tartan's theme of doomed love and death is further represented by the funeral colour black, yet this is equally balanced with pure white, a colour in Japan known to represent joyful life events. Importantly the tartan celebrates a historical industrial relationship between Scotland and Japan."
For more the story's origins, click here.
One of opera's most famous arias is Butterfly's "Un bel dì vedremo," sung in response to friend and housekeeper's Suzuki's expressed doubts that Pinkerton will ever return to Japan.
Click the opera poster from the 1914 production at La Scala, in Milan, for a truly beautiful rendition (with English translation) of the aria "Un bel di vedremo" sung by Kiri Te Kanawa.