Daily-ist: Thursday

Goodbye hump day, hello rain. Did anyone else have a sucky Wednesday? And to top it off, the current monsoon over our office is making us have flashbacks of the beginning of the summer. What happened to our 108 degrees and sunny?!

We are on a mission to make the most of this wet and soggy day, so we are heading to the Museum of Fine Arts tonight as they present Artful Thursdays. Because an artful Thursday has to be better than a sucky Wednesday.

Tonight's event will be a special presentation of an opera preview: An Inside View of Madame Butterfly. The evening includes a panel discussion and opera highlights, with a preview of Houston Ebony Opera Guild's upcoming production of Madame Butterfly at Miller Outdoor Theatre.

In 1904, an abandoned young woman took the stage at La Scala in Milan, Italy, praying for her lover´s return. Thus, the world was introduced to Madame Butterfly. Her story, set in Japan around 1900, is a tragic one of innocence betrayed, but one that lives on through Giacomo Puccini´s immortal musical score. Butterfly, a young geisha, marries a U.S. Naval officer, Lt. Pinkerton in a ceremony that Butterfly takes much more seriously than he does. When Pinkerton leaves Japan, promising to return for his bride, she is with child. He eventually returns but with his American wife, and wants to take his son back to the USA. Overcome with grief, Butterfly commits suicide as the opera ends.

Kate Pogue, Adjunct Professor of Drama, U of H Downtown, serves as moderator for the this Artful Thursday´s preview of Houston Ebony Opera Guild´s upcoming production of Madame Butterfly at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Panelists include HEOG conductor and artistic director, Willie Waters; stage director, Ellen Douglas Schlaefer; and acclaimed singers Geraldine McMillian and David Brewer, cast respectively as Butterfly and Pinkerton.
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tonight, Aug 16th | 6:30pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Brown Auditorium | 1001 Bissonnet Street
FREE

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Pictured: Taiso Yoshitoshi (Tsukioka), Moon of Pure Snow at Asano River: Chikako, the Filial Daughter, from the series 100 Phases of the Moon, publishedby Akiyama Buemon, 1885, color woodblock print on paper, the MFAH, gift of Milton D. Rosenau, Jr. and Dr. Ellen R. Gritz.