In its most ambitious production to date, the daring and cheeky Pacific Opera Project (POP) offered the first-ever true-to-story bilingual Madama Butterfly to three audiences here (April 6, 13, 14—seen April 13), with four more performances set for Houston later this month and in early May. 

With a new libretto written by POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw and Houston’s Opera in the Heights Artistic Director Eiki Isomura, the production presents the Madame Butterfly story as if it actually occurred in Nagasaki sometime around the turn of the 20th century, when Japan was first opening up to Western influence.