envoyer en l'air

Marcelo Moscheta - Atlas Fernanda D'Agostino . FlashArt Magazine Known for dealing with notions of landscape, Marcelo Moscheta’s most recent works are on view in “Atlas” at Galeria Leme in São Paulo.

Cette espèce d’hélianthe, Man Ray, 1934.

On February 17, 1904, Giacomo Puccini premiered what is now considered one of the greatest operas of all time at the renowned La Scala opera house in Milan: Madama Butterfly. Interestingly, while Puccini felt throughout his life that it was among his best works, his first version of Madama Butterfly was famously a fiasco; he revised and re-premiered on May 28th of that year with the version we know and love today. On the anniversary of the work’s release, 115 years later, CR remembers the tragic origins of Madama Butterfly and how it influenced one of the most storied Parisian fashion houses of all time.

Based on the short story “Madam Butterfly” by John Luther Long, the subsequent play it inspired by David Belasco, and, arguably, the novel Madame Chrysanthème byPierre Loti, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly follows the story of the cavalier Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, a U.S. naval officer stationed in Japan, who marries a former geisha, Cio-Cio San. He obtains a 999-year lease on a house in Nagasaki harbor and places her there, able to end both the lease and the marriage with a month’s notice. Shortly after they wed, Pinkerton abandons Cio-Cio San, only to return three years later with an American wife. When Cio-Cio San learns Pinkerton wants to take the son he fathered with her back to America, Cio-Cio San ends her life. It is a heart-wrenching tale of love and betrayal that has inspired countless art forms since its premieres in 1904, like plays (including M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, which comments on the gender and racial inequities in the original story), film, and, of course, fashion…

Max Ernst 

1891-1976

Loplop, 1969 

John W. Draper, Daguerreotype of the Moon, (1840)

Photograph of a hand

anonymous photographer

Silver print