‘And this? Can he forget this as well?’ cries Cio-Cio-San, as she presents the US consul in Nagasaki with her three-yearold son, love child of the naval lieutenant she fondly believed to be her husband.
It’s one of the most arresting moments in all opera. It’s also a cri de cœur on behalf of all women who’ve been abandoned by feckless men.
Lieutenant Pinkerton does return, albeit with his American wife. We all remember the moment at the end when the Countess sweeps in to confer forgiveness on her errant husband. But Butterfly’s reply to Kate Pinkerton – ‘Under the great dome of heaven, there isn’t a happier woman than you, and may you always be so’ – is of a similar order of memorability.
