Costume and Scenery Design for the Ballet Madame Butterfly

The ballet dancers’ dresses are the costume of the universe: in Japanese tradition, clothes for the body and the soul. According to the vision of God in the western and Eastern world, the dancers’ attitudes are different in their movements. The dancer representing the Western world (Pinkerton) stretches upwards, where we normally imagine an absolute God must be. His outstretched legs and arms mean conquering the world, Pinkerton’s world.

On the other hand, the dancer symbolizing the Eastern world (Butterfly), cringes and bends and curves to make his existence fit in with the universe, the mandala of Buddhism. The white dress signifies the bride’s abandon of her previous life, a sort of “death” before a new life. In her pocket there is a doll implying the birth of a child, fruit of her love and heart of the tragedy. Butterfly rolls like a dew drop on a leaf of grass, a touching image of lost hope symbolically represented by a dead sparrow.

Anna Chromy.