Behind exotic timbres and unforgettable melodies Puccini's seductive score of Madama Butterfly hides an almost cutting tragedy that hits the listener right in the heart. It is a classic love story that never moves, a tragic romance that carries you away in all its intensity. The opera, which combines authentic Japanese music with lush European harmonies and orchestrations, is an irresistible fusion of East and West. Puccini's opera will not make its festival debut in Glyndebourne until 2018, when director Annilese Miskimmon created a thought-provoking production that updates the original turn of the century back to the 1950s and confronts the darker political and emotional currents of a work that recognises that there are some barriers too high to be overcome by love. This love story has no chance of a happy ending.