Starcrossed: A Biography of Madame Butterfly

Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly has enjoyed tremendous popularity in Europe and America since its debut in 1904. It has also inspired a global-level debate about whether the tragic heroine of the opera, Cho-Cho-san, was based on a real-life model.

Starcrossed looks at this controversy and presents compelling evidence that, in fact, there was no real life Cho-Cho-san. Nonetheless, the author demonstrates that, despite the cultural disparities evoked by the ope…