Madame Butterfly plays tonight

Madame Butterfly plays tonight

JAKARTA (JP): The London Opera and Concert Company will stage
highlights of Madame Butterfly, a three-act opera by Giacomo
Puccini, in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel Jakarta
tonight.

The performance, to start at 7 p.m. in the 700-seat ballroom,
will be preceded by a cocktail party and feature two
intermissions complete with desserts. There were still tickets,
for Rp150,000 (US$64) each, as of 4 p.m. yesterday, according to
the hotel, a joint sponsor with television station RCTI and Dutch
airline KLM.

The London opera group, directed by soprano Barbara Segal, has
performed several times in Jakarta. Last year it performed
Georges Bizet's Carmen. In 1994, it performed Giuseppe Verdi's
Aida.

Madame Butterfly was first performed in 1904 in Milan's La
Scala opera house. It was adapted from American playwright David
Belasco's tragic love story about a U.S. Navy lieutenant and a
Japanese girl. (arf)