You are but a plain artist, and you must obey my direction.” An explosion ensued, but Toscanini won out. Toscanini’s famous response was: “The stars are all in the heavens, mademoiselle.

At a rehearsal, she told him he should follow her lead, as she was the star. The year following Madama Butterfly’s Met premiere, the opera was revived with the same lead singers, but this time with maestro Arturo Toscanini (pictured above, with Farrar and General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza). Farrar, though, was not invited to sing Minnie. Nonetheless, when the composer’s La Fanciulla del West had its world premiere at the Met in 1910, Caruso was the lead tenor. Although he was normally highly vulnerable to beautiful women, he wrote cryptically that Farrar “was not what she ought to have been.” And while he admitted Caruso’s voice was “magnificent,” he thought him lazy and unwilling to learn. Puccini confided in a letter that he was not particularly pleased by either of the stars. On the other hand, Caruso was idolized for his voice, which, especially through his recordings, made him the most beloved singer in the world. Farrar’s youth and beauty were as much a part of her fame as her voice, and as her fame grew over the next 15 years, she developed a fan-base of mostly young women called “gerryflappers” who imitated her style. They would henceforth be the Met’s biggest box office duo. Apart from the composer’s presence, the stars of that first Met Madama Butterfly were Geraldine Farrar (pictured above, with Louise Homer as Suzuki) and Enrico Caruso in their first performance together.

Three years after the world premiere at La Scala, Puccini was invited to the Metropolitan to oversee its first staging here. Although his Madama Butterfly was poorly received at its 1904 world premiere, he quickly revised the opera, and it began to conquer the operatic world. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Puccini was a contemporary composer churning out pieces for opera houses hungry for new works. Today, Puccini operas are an essential part of the core repertory for opera houses around the world.

The metropolitan opera madama butterfly