Opera «Madama Butterfly» (concert version)

   Cio-Cio San waiting in Nagasaki for a man who will not come back — HBSO brings Puccini's story to the Opera House for the first time in the city, two nights, with the orchestra and chorus live on stage and Vietnamese and English surtitles running throughout.

   This is the concert version in two acts (three parts) of the opera by Giacomo Puccini, to a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. The programme marks 33 years of HBSO and is staged in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Ho Chi Minh City.

   Who is on stage:

• — Madama Butterfly (Cio-Cio San): Merited Artist Phạm Khánh Ngọc, the soprano who has just taken second prize at the SLO-ASEAN international vocal competition in Singapore
• — Pinkerton: Marco Miglietta; Sharpless: Đào Mác; Suzuki: Phan Hồng Dịu; Goro: Phạm Trang
• — Il Commissario Imperiale: Võ Nguyễn Thành Tâm; Il Principe Yamadori: Trần Thanh Nam; Kate Pinkerton: Nguyễn Vũ Uyên Di; Zio Bonzo: Bùi Danh Hùng
• — Conductor and music director: Roberto Fiore; artistic director: Dr Lê Ha My; chorus master: Trần Nhật Minh
• — Performed by the HBSO Choir and Symphony Orchestra, with costume design by Nova Sinfonietta Shanghai

   A concert version drops the sets and puts everything on the music and the singing, which makes it an easy way in if opera is new to you: you follow the voices and the surtitles rather than the staging.

   The opera is sung in Italian with Vietnamese and English surtitles side by side, so the plot stays clear whatever language you arrive with.

   Both nights, 11 and 12 September, start in the evening. Tickets are sold at the HBSO box office in the basement of the Opera House, and this run is the work's first outing in Ho Chi Minh City.