San Francisco War Memorial Opera House - Madama Butterfly

It was a few years back my husband and I had an opportunity to watch Madama Butterfly at the Opera House in San Francisco.  I remember it was a very long drive because of the heavy traffic.  We arrived at 6:30 that evening.  It was a very cold night, but we enjoyed the opera very much.
This is the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.  It's a very old but beautiful buidling.

We waited a while before we were let into the theater. Here is a gorgeous interior picture I found online:

I was lucky to find these videos from You Tube.  There were two screens hung on each side of the theater.  It was a good thing that they shown the English subtitle on the screens through out the entire play. This is a story about a 15 years old Japanese girl who fell in love in Japan with a U.S. Naval officer.  Unfortunately the officer had to go back to America.  She waited for him to come back to reunite with her and their son.  After 3 years of waiting, she found out he had already married and brought the new wife with him.  She was so devastated and commited suicide.  For more detail on the story, you can read Madama Butterfly here.e

Here is a song most of us are familiar with:



This is the finale where Madama Butterfly wanted to commit suicide:



It was worth the time to experience the opera for the first time.  Ever since that time, I fell in love with opera and had watched a few since then.