The New Year’s Opera 2016 is staged as usual the first and the 3rd January as part of the rich calendar of event in Rimini for "The world's longest new year’s eve". This year is scheduled Madam Butterfly, the opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini on libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. The opera is performed by Opera Futura in collaboration with the Lyric Choir of Rimini, "Amintore Galli", and it will be directed by Paolo Panizza (who has directed in Rimini “La Traviata” in 2013 and “La Vedova Allegra” in 2014).
Madam Butterfly is defined in the musical score and in the libretto a "Japanese tragedy", and it was performed for the first time in 1904 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The opera tells the story about the young Ciò Ciò San and her naive and unrequited love to a naval officer of the United States of America and about her hope of his return to Nagasaki. It is one of the most engaging and romantic lyrical dramas in the opera history, in which love unfortunately will not triumph and the illusion of happiness leads instead the protagonist into the tragedy, as to tradition in the melodramas.