[1][2][3] Long's version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, which, after premiering in New York in 1900, moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.

It was poorly received, despite having such notable singers as soprano Rosina Storchio, tenor Giovanni Zenatello and baritone Giuseppe De Luca in lead roles.

However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed, such as for the opening of La Scala's 2016–17 season, on 7 December 2016, with Riccardo Chailly conducting.

[13] The Metropolitan Opera first performed the opera on 11 February 1907 under the supervision of the composer with Geraldine Farrar as Cio-Cio-San, Enrico Caruso as Pinkerton, Louise Homer as Suzuki, Antonio Scotti as Sharpless, with Arturo Vigna conducting;[14] Madama Butterfly has since been heard virtually every season at the Met except for a hiatus during World War II from 1942 through 1945 due to the hostilities between the United States and Japan.

[16] In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly".

Her real name is Cio-Cio-San (from the Japanese word for "butterfly" (蝶々, chōchō, pronounced [tɕoꜜːtɕoː]); -san is a plain honorific).

After the wedding ceremony, her uninvited uncle, a bonze, who has found out about her conversion, comes to the house, curses her and orders all the guests to leave, which they do while renouncing her.

Agreeing to give up her child if Pinkerton comes himself to see her, she then prays to statues of her ancestral gods, says goodbye to her son, and blindfolds him.

[20] The premiere in Milan was a fiasco, as Puccini's sister, Ramelde, wrote in a letter to her husband:[21] At two o'clock we went to bed and I can't sleep one bit; and to say that we were all so sure!

Worst of all was the idea to give audience plants nightingale whistles to deepen the sense of sunrise in the final scene.

[24] Today Madama Butterfly is the sixth most performed opera in the world[25] and considered a masterpiece, with Puccini's orchestration praised as limpid, fluent and refined.