MADAMA BUTTERFLY

Puccini's classic opera of a trusting woman and how her love was tragically betrayed. In the 19th century, an American sailor named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton arrives in Japan and meets a 15-year-old girl named Cio-Cio-San , whom he calls Butterfly. Butterfly falls in love with Pinkerton, but he regards their romance as a temporary fling and blithely asks for her hand even though he has no intention of bringing her with him when he returns to the States. As I recall, this piece of music is sung (or in this case, hummed) while Cio-Cio-San is waiting for him to return from sea.