The "Humming Chorus," hummed by the choir while Cio-Cio-San and her household wait all night for Pinkerton to come home, provided a major inspiration for the melody of the famous "Bring Him Home," from Les Misérables.
Butterfly's famous aria, "Un Bel Di," makes a few appearances in other media.
Prominently used in the far-future, science fiction short film "Magnetic Rose" (part of Memories) as an SOS signal coming from a derelict space station that once belonged to a famous opera singer.
In The Most Dangerous Game, when General Zaroff thinks he has driven Rainsford to his death, he hums "Un Bel Di," no doubt thinking of a ship that will come one day to bring him new (human) prey to hunt.
In The Simpsons, Barney Gumble's entry into the Springfield Film Festival in A Star Is Burns uses "Un Bel Di" to great effect as Barney laments his wasted life.
Trivia Tropes:
All-Star Cast: As Cio-Cio San, Pinkerton, Suzuki, and Sharpless...
Audio Recordings:
1954, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni: Victoria de los Ángeles, Giuseppe di Stephano, Anna Maria Canali, Tito Gobbi
1955, conducted by Herbert von Karajan: Maria Callas, Nicolai Gedda, Lucia Danieli, Mario Borriello
1957, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf: Anna Moffo, Cesare Valletti, Rosalind Elias, Renato Cesari
1958, conducted by Tulio Serafin: Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Fiorenza Cossotto, Enzo Sordello
1962, again conducted by Erich Leinsdorf: Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker, Rosalind Elias, Philip Maero
1966, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli: Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Anna di Stasio, Rolando Panerai
1987, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli: Mirella Freni, José Carreras, Teresa Berganza, Juan Pons
2009, conducted by Antonio Pappano: Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kaufmann, Enkelejda Shkosa, Fabio Capitanucci
Video Recordings:
1975, conducted by Herbert von Karajan (film by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle): Mirella Freni, Plácido Domingo, Christa Ludwig, Robert Kerns
1986, conducted by Lorin Maazel at the Teatro alla Scala: Yasuko Hayashi, Peter Dvorsky, Hak-Nam Kim, Giorgio Zancanaro
2011, conducted by Patrick Summers at the Met Opera: Patricia Racette, Marcello Giordani, Maria Zifchak, Greg Fedderly
2019, conducted by Eiki Isomura at the Aratani Theatre: Janet Szepei Todd, Peter James Lake, Kimberly Sgioka, Kenneth Stavert. This one is a special Retool by the Pacific Opera Project which translates the libretto into Japanese & English to better reflect the character's nationalities.
All There in the Manual: It may or may not be referenced in productions of the opera, but in the original John Luther Long short story and its stage adaptation by David Belasco, Prince Yamadori is a thoroughly Westernized Japanese man who lives mainly in New York City and speaks fluent English.
Banned in the U.S.A.: After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Madame Butterfly was banished from New York's Metropolitan Opera for the remainder of World War II, for obvious reasons.
California Doubling: Frédéric Mitterand's 1995 movie was filmed in Tunisia, which doubles as Nagasaki.
Dawson Casting: As is the norm for opera, Cio-Cio-San is never played by an actual teenager (she is 15 in the first act and 18 in the last two acts). Her role is very demanding, and it can take years of training before one is ready to take it on. An interesting variation occurs with her three-year old son, Sorrow, who almost always appears "big for his age", with actors around 5-7 — most likely so they'll behave themselves and stay where they're supposed to, not throw tantrums and ruin the show, etc.
The most recent Metropolitan Opera production avoids the problem of Sorrow being "big for his age" by portraying him through Bunraku puppetry.
Fake Nationality: A given for many productions, especially those outside of America. Then again, even in America, it's pretty common to see European tenors and baritones singing Pinkerton and Sharpless. Likewise, the soprano singing Cio-Cio-San isn't always East Asian, let alone Japanese.
Frédéric Mitterand's 1995 film adaptation plays this straight, as many of the Japanese characters are played by Chinese opera singers: Cio-Cio San is played by Ying Huang, Suzuki by Ning Liang, and Goro by Jing Ma Fan.
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1975 film adaptation also plays this straight with a European cast: Cio-Cio San is played by Italian soprano Mirella Freni, Pinkerton by Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo, Suzuki by German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, and Goro by French tenor Michel Sénéchal. The only character to be sung by an American is Sharpless, sung by American baritone Robert Kerns.
Romance on the Set: Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé met her husband, Spanish tenor Bernabé Martí, during a production of this opera in A Coruña in 1964.
Typecasting: A common issue for East Asian sopranos in Cio-Cio-San's range is that they tend to be typecast in this role. Some sopranos, like Japanese soprano Hiromi Omura, have embraced it along with the other roles in her repertoire.
