The Takarazuka Concise Madame Butterfly

For more than two decades I had the pleasure and the privilege of working with Kyoko Selden on Japanese texts relating to the history of Italian opera in Japan. We started with translations involving the reception of Puccini's Madama Butterfly and then began working on Takarazuka musical adaptations of the opera. Although administrative duties made it difficult to realize a book project Kyoko's translation of the 1953 Takarazuka Chōchō-san sandaiki (Three-Generation Chōchō-san) furnished me with the basis for a conference presentation, and we eventually collaborated on an English edition of its libretto. That edition was the result of an extensive and—for me—instructive series of revisions and discussions with Kyoko about the intricate relationships between source and target languages. We spent stimulating afternoons over coffee interrogating texts in Italian, Japanese, and English, ultimately working through several complete revisions. Lamentably, that kind of collaboration was less fully realized in the following translation, which we discussed only once. I have edited it here with the generous help of Lili Selden, and revised or added footnotes, in one case deliberately juxtaposing two viewpoints. I believe I also speak for Kyoko in hoping that readers will find it an invitation to continue and refine our dialogue on the transpositions of Italian and Japanese music-dramas into widely different cultural contexts.