This video captures a rare winter Alaska Railroad passenger train. It is seen fronting a winter ice fog rising above the frozen mud flats and Cook Inlet waters bordering Anchorage Alaska.
Watch as the train disappears into the frosted foliage amid the ice fog.
Link to Alaska Railroad Train Disappearing into Winter Ice Fog:
To the sounds of "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan, this United States Air Force fighter jet spans Alaska's sky with a vapor trail above Mount Susitna and the Alaska Range:
Chugach Range creates a dramatic east of Anchorage Alaska skyline. With the morning sun rising over its mountains it is all the more spectacular as seen in this video taken this morning with the blazing sunrise sky above.
Chugach was the name given to this mountain range by a U.S. Army Captain in 1898 as he named the range for the Native Alaska Pacific Eskimo People who lived on the ocean shoreline which he phonetically originally spelled as “Chugatch.”
The most climbed mountain in Alaska, Flattop, is a prominent peak in the Chugach Range visible in this video taken from my home in the Anchorage suburb where I reside. At 3,510 feet elevation it is dwarfed by the Chugach Range’s tallest mountain, Mount Baker at 13,094 feet and also visible in this video, Bashful Peak at 7,959 feet - the tallest Chugach Mountain Peak visible from Anchorage.
Chugach Range is the northernmost range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that span the western edge of North America. Also noteworthy is that the Chugach Mountains occupy the second-largest U.S. National Forrest which combined with Chugach State Park cover 9,000 square miles.
The Chugach Mountain range dates back to the Cretaceous Period and its sedimentary rocks constitute the highly eroded remains of what geologists have named the Chugach Terrace.
Link to This Morning's Video of Sunrise over the Chugach Mountains:
SERENADED BY HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS ARE FROST COVERED TREES, SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS OF THE CHUGACH RANGE ALL UNDER THIS MORNING'S CRIMSON SUNRISE SKY:
Link to Video with the Sounds of the Tijuana Brass Serenading Today's Sunrise over the Chugach Mountains:
VIEWS LOOKING BACK FROM ATOP THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS WHILE CLIMBING THE CHUGACH'S FLATTOP:
Experience a shared panoramic view of the Chugach Mountains and city of Anchorage Alaska as seen from climbing the most climbed mountain in Alaska, Flattop, at 3,000 plus feet above the city.
Link to Video Looking Downward from Atop Chugach Mountains' Flattop:
THE CHUGACH PEOPLE (AFTER WHOM THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS WERE NAMED) MEETING CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIPS IN SNUG CORNER COVE JUST 35 MILES FROM TODAY'S CORDOVA ALASKA:
The painting replicates an original engraving based on onboard sketches from a 1780s Book Chronicling Captain Cook's 3rd Voyage.
Link to Video of Painting with Period Preserved Depictions of the Chugach People:
Concurrently taken photo of this morning's sunrise over the Chugach Mountains, Prior Views looking down on the Chugach Mountains and from Atop Chugach Mountains' Flattop, and of the Chugach People as they were contemporaneously preserved by artist record keeper J. Webber aboard one of Captain Cook's ships and subsequently engraved by W. Ellis for the 1780s book on the Voyage:
With it now being Super Bowl weekend, It's time to get ready for the Super Bowl Watch parties.
From Spectrum News:
"Americans are planning their Super Bowl parties. One of, if not the most important component of any Super Bowl party is, of course, the food. A new study done by Coffeeness has found the most popular Super Bowl foods by state, with Texans’ favorite Super Bowl snack being hot dogs.
The most popular Super Bowl food in the country was buffalo chicken dip, emerging as a top food in 29 states according to the study. Hawaii and Florida had a surprising top dish with poke bowls topping the list. Baked potatoes were particularly popular in the West, coming in at the top spot in California, Oregon and Washington among others. Fried green tomatoes continue to be popular in the South, finding themselves at the top in states like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi. "
EVERYBODY LOVES PANDAS, BUT BEFORE THERE WERE LIVE PANDAS TO BE VIEWED IN AMERICA .....
America's love for Pandas was heralded by a diorama at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History thanks to the 1929 expedition efforts of President Teddy Roosevelt's sons Theodore and Kermit. As evident in my contemporary photo that diorama can still be seen today.
The Roosevelt Expedition and Diorama inspired a subsequent expedition by others in 1936 to return to China to bring back the first live Panda to come to America which found a home in Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. Fittingly that Panda, Su Lin, has its final resting place also at the Chicago Field Museum in the shared Hall of Asian Mammals.
Seen here at the Beijing Zoo in China this Panda has learned how to mimic his standing visitors by standing up as well.
Once in position standing erect, the Panda appears to be thoughtfully pondering the accomplishment and then turns and glances at us watching visitors.
It started out with a Middle School's concert followed the next evening by a High School Concert with attendance upcoming this evening at the opera "Madame Butterfly."
Below are videos and photos from Jazz Band performances at the two concerts along with some added commentary and photos taken in Nagasaki Japan relevant to the opera "Madame Butterfly's historical origins and its Nagasaki setting.
An evening filled with live & silent auctions featuring dozens of cakes and donated items has been held now for 25 years with the proceeds going to support the Romig Middle School’s Music Department.
In appreciation for the public support the students perform for the donors.
Watch and listen to the Jazz Band as they entertain with a lively number that includes visual antics.
Link to Video of the Middle School's Jazz Band Performance:
“A Night of Music” was this year's Service High School benefit concert. A highlight of the evening’s musical performances was this number presented by the Jazz Band.
Watch and listen as Christopher Klevorn debuts in an impressive performance as the featured soloist accompanied by his Jazz Band classmates.
Watch to the end and you will feel like joining in with the well deserved applause from not only the audience but also from his Jazz Band member peers.
Link to Video of the High School's Jazz Band Performance with the Soloist's Debut:
Contemporaneously taken Photos including our Rotary Club's efforts to assist with the Middle School's fundraising efforts and meeting up with the trombone soloist who invited us to attend his High School's concert:
At the Middle School's Concert:
At the High School's Concert:
Commentary and Photos relevant to the opera "Madame Butterfly" beginning with views looking up onto the hill above Nagasaki's port where the Glover Gardens and House are situated. As referenced in the commentary the real life son of the opera's protagonist, Cho-Cho San (Madame Butterfly) grew up here:
And here is the commentary relating to the historical basis of the opera "Madame Butterfly:"
The Real Life Story of Madame Butterfly
Was There a Real Madame Butterfly?
Jan van Rij, author of Madame Butterfly: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San, reveals the story behind the story.
BY JAN VAN RIJ
The story of Madame Butterfly is an old one. In 1616, the Italian adventurer Carletti wrote that as soon as foreign sailors arrived in Japan "the pimps who control this traffic in women call on them ... and enquire whether they would like to purchase or to acquire in any other method they please, a girl for the period of their sojourn," a contract to that effect being signed with the go-between or the family. This practice was continued by the Dutch merchants during the 250 years that they were allowed, as the only foreigners, to stay in Japan on the tiny, artificial island of Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki. It still existed when, in 1885, the French navy officer and author Pierre Loti arrived, who invented nothing new in his well-documented and very popular French novel about his "marriage" of six weeks with "Madame Chrysanthème."
So, when, in 1892, Irvin and Jennie Correll came to Nagasaki as missionaries of the American Methodist Mission, it was not surprising that their attention was drawn to this practice. They were initially discreet about it; it would only be much later that Jennie recounted one particular story which she said she had heard from her local shopkeeper around 1895, although the events in the story had taken place more than twenty years earlier.
When Jennie went home on leave to the U.S. in 1897, she stayed some time with her brother John Luther Long, a Philadelphia lawyer. Long had literary aspirations and wrote as a sideline. The year after his sister's visit, he published in the Century Illustrated Magazine a short story called "Madame Butterfly," which was based on the Nagasaki story his sister had told him. Long's story was soon afterward turned into a play by the playwright David Belasco. Puccini saw the play in London in the summer of 1900 and was inspired to create the opera of the same name.
The few, simple facts that Jennie Correll had learned in Nagasaki were professionally amplified by Long and Belasco into a well-structured novella and an elaborate one-act play by adding numerous authentic details, most of which had been taken from Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthème. Persons like Pinkerton, Goro, and Suzuki are clearly inspired by Loti's prototypes. But Long's account was also based on the events conveyed to him by his sister, many of which remained hidden for a long time, only gradually becoming public knowledge.
This is the story Jennie Correll told her brother: Around 1870 there lived in Nagasaki three Scottish brothers: Thomas, Alex and Alfred Glover. One of them (probably Alex, although we don't know for sure) had an intimate relationship with a Japanese woman called Kaga Maki, who worked as an entertainer in a local teahouse under the name of Cho-san, Miss Butterfly. Normally such a link with a foreign man was considered a temporary "marriage," for which an amount was paid to the "bride" (usually 100 yen or 20 Mexican dollars) and which could be ended by the "husband" at any time.
In the course of her relationship with the Scotsman, Kaga Maki became pregnant and on December 8, 1870, she gave birth to their son, naming him Shinsaburo. The father later abandoned the woman and her child and eventually left Japan. After a while, the father's brother Thomas and the latter's common law Japanese wife, Awajiya Tsuru, successfully claimed the boy, who then became part of the household of his adoptive mother. His name was changed into Tomisaburo (Tom, for short) and he eventually became known as Tom Glover. During the time that Jennie Correll lived in Nagasaki, Tom Glover, having finished his education in Japanese and American universities, returned to his hometown, took up residence there and established himself officially as the head of a newly registered Japanese family called Guraba (which is the Japanese transliteration of Glover).
Those who knew Tom Glover was Butterfly's son remained discreet about it, although John Luther Long privately identified him as such. By the early 1930s Jennie Correll and the Japanese soprano Miura Tamaki (who sang the Butterfly role numerous times and had spoken with John Luther Long a few years earlier about the facts of the story) were the only surviving witnesses. When questioned about his identity in a 1931 interview, Tom Glover confirmed that his mother had been the original Madame Butterfly. Research in Japanese family registers has confirmed these facts.
What happened to the real persons of this drama? After her child was taken away from her, Kaga Maki, the real Cho-cho-san, married a Japanese man with whom she moved away. Subsequently they divorced and she came back to Nagasaki, where she died in 1906.
Her son, Tom Glover, the real life model of Butterfly's son, Trouble, in the opera, lived in Nagasaki. He married a woman called Nakano Waka, whose father was a British merchant, but they had no children. He lost his wife during World War II. The years of the war were hard on him and in August 1945, after the surrender of Japan and during the chaos caused by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, he committed suicide.
Thus the heartbreaking drama of Puccini's opera was exceeded by the real life tragedies hidden underneath. There is no evidence that Kaga Maki, the original Butterfly, ever saw Tomisaburo again. Her son, who in the opera is promised that one day his name, Dolore (Trouble, or Sorrow), will be changed into Gioia (Joy), remained troubled until his death.
Comments
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**Sasquatch and his horse called moose **
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This actor was great to watch on the Waltons
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From Yesterday morning:
And last night:
This video captures a rare winter Alaska Railroad passenger train. It is seen fronting a winter ice fog rising above the frozen mud flats and Cook Inlet waters bordering Anchorage Alaska.
Watch as the train disappears into the frosted foliage amid the ice fog.
Link to Alaska Railroad Train Disappearing into Winter Ice Fog:
Link to Winter Passenger Train Creeping Along Accompanied by Music:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lm0SnMQ8IHE
To the sounds of "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan, this United States Air Force fighter jet spans Alaska's sky with a vapor trail above Mount Susitna and the Alaska Range:
Link to Video of Fighter Jet Spanning Alaska Sky:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BkpwBScoXWM
Link to Video of Air Force fighter jet's contrail challenging the setting sun:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fNKq-DjPt_o
Link to Video of Air Force fighter jet descending vertically toward sunset lit Alaska Range accompanied by the continuing sounds of "Angel:"
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LLiRlqrAgag
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INYNWHWeTrust-TexasNationals,ajaan,blu62vette
coinJP, Outhaul ,illini420,MICHAELDIXON, Fade to Black,epcjimi1,19Lyds,SNMAN,JerseyJoe, bigjpst, DMWJR , lordmarcovan, Weiss,Mfriday4962,UtahCoin,Downtown1974,pitboss,RichieURich,Bullsitter,JDsCoins,toyz4geo,jshaulis, mustanggt, SNMAN, MWallace, ms71, lordmarcovan
I know that engine.
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Chugach Range creates a dramatic east of Anchorage Alaska skyline. With the morning sun rising over its mountains it is all the more spectacular as seen in this video taken this morning with the blazing sunrise sky above.
Chugach was the name given to this mountain range by a U.S. Army Captain in 1898 as he named the range for the Native Alaska Pacific Eskimo People who lived on the ocean shoreline which he phonetically originally spelled as “Chugatch.”
The most climbed mountain in Alaska, Flattop, is a prominent peak in the Chugach Range visible in this video taken from my home in the Anchorage suburb where I reside. At 3,510 feet elevation it is dwarfed by the Chugach Range’s tallest mountain, Mount Baker at 13,094 feet and also visible in this video, Bashful Peak at 7,959 feet - the tallest Chugach Mountain Peak visible from Anchorage.
Chugach Range is the northernmost range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that span the western edge of North America. Also noteworthy is that the Chugach Mountains occupy the second-largest U.S. National Forrest which combined with Chugach State Park cover 9,000 square miles.
The Chugach Mountain range dates back to the Cretaceous Period and its sedimentary rocks constitute the highly eroded remains of what geologists have named the Chugach Terrace.
Link to This Morning's Video of Sunrise over the Chugach Mountains:
SERENADED BY HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS ARE FROST COVERED TREES, SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS OF THE CHUGACH RANGE ALL UNDER THIS MORNING'S CRIMSON SUNRISE SKY:
Link to Video with the Sounds of the Tijuana Brass Serenading Today's Sunrise over the Chugach Mountains:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FPtilHXSQEc
VIEWS LOOKING BACK FROM ATOP THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS WHILE CLIMBING THE CHUGACH'S FLATTOP:
Experience a shared panoramic view of the Chugach Mountains and city of Anchorage Alaska as seen from climbing the most climbed mountain in Alaska, Flattop, at 3,000 plus feet above the city.
Link to Video Looking Downward from Atop Chugach Mountains' Flattop:
THE CHUGACH PEOPLE (AFTER WHOM THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS WERE NAMED) MEETING CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIPS IN SNUG CORNER COVE JUST 35 MILES FROM TODAY'S CORDOVA ALASKA:
The painting replicates an original engraving based on onboard sketches from a 1780s Book Chronicling Captain Cook's 3rd Voyage.
Link to Video of Painting with Period Preserved Depictions of the Chugach People:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IybuC_aTWuU
Concurrently taken photo of this morning's sunrise over the Chugach Mountains, Prior Views looking down on the Chugach Mountains and from Atop Chugach Mountains' Flattop, and of the Chugach People as they were contemporaneously preserved by artist record keeper J. Webber aboard one of Captain Cook's ships and subsequently engraved by W. Ellis for the 1780s book on the Voyage:
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INYNWHWeTrust-TexasNationals,ajaan,blu62vette
coinJP, Outhaul ,illini420,MICHAELDIXON, Fade to Black,epcjimi1,19Lyds,SNMAN,JerseyJoe, bigjpst, DMWJR , lordmarcovan, Weiss,Mfriday4962,UtahCoin,Downtown1974,pitboss,RichieURich,Bullsitter,JDsCoins,toyz4geo,jshaulis, mustanggt, SNMAN, MWallace, ms71, lordmarcovan
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Cold and snowy in B oston today
boston
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Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Time to thin out the herd
And they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, Hills that is...
Where's the question???
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Ma and Pa Kettle
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Real funny guys
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With it now being Super Bowl weekend, It's time to get ready for the Super Bowl Watch parties.
From Spectrum News:
"Americans are planning their Super Bowl parties. One of, if not the most important component of any Super Bowl party is, of course, the food. A new study done by Coffeeness has found the most popular Super Bowl foods by state, with Texans’ favorite Super Bowl snack being hot dogs.
The most popular Super Bowl food in the country was buffalo chicken dip, emerging as a top food in 29 states according to the study. Hawaii and Florida had a surprising top dish with poke bowls topping the list. Baked potatoes were particularly popular in the West, coming in at the top spot in California, Oregon and Washington among others. Fried green tomatoes continue to be popular in the South, finding themselves at the top in states like Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi. "
So in homage to all the Texans here:
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And if you are watching from Japan:
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"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
EVERYBODY LOVES PANDAS, BUT BEFORE THERE WERE LIVE PANDAS TO BE VIEWED IN AMERICA .....
America's love for Pandas was heralded by a diorama at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History thanks to the 1929 expedition efforts of President Teddy Roosevelt's sons Theodore and Kermit. As evident in my contemporary photo that diorama can still be seen today.
The Roosevelt Expedition and Diorama inspired a subsequent expedition by others in 1936 to return to China to bring back the first live Panda to come to America which found a home in Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. Fittingly that Panda, Su Lin, has its final resting place also at the Chicago Field Museum in the shared Hall of Asian Mammals.
Seen here at the Beijing Zoo in China this Panda has learned how to mimic his standing visitors by standing up as well.
Once in position standing erect, the Panda appears to be thoughtfully pondering the accomplishment and then turns and glances at us watching visitors.
Link to the Standing Up Pondering Panda:
Related photos including my contemporary photo of the Panda Diorama at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History:
Reading and Northern 2102 getting ready to for it's first run in 2025 to Jim Thorp, PA this morning.
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Now on it's way.
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coinJP, Outhaul ,illini420,MICHAELDIXON, Fade to Black,epcjimi1,19Lyds,SNMAN,JerseyJoe, bigjpst, DMWJR , lordmarcovan, Weiss,Mfriday4962,UtahCoin,Downtown1974,pitboss,RichieURich,Bullsitter,JDsCoins,toyz4geo,jshaulis, mustanggt, SNMAN, MWallace, ms71, lordmarcovan
A MAGICAL MUSICAL WEEKEND
It started out with a Middle School's concert followed the next evening by a High School Concert with attendance upcoming this evening at the opera "Madame Butterfly."
Below are videos and photos from Jazz Band performances at the two concerts along with some added commentary and photos taken in Nagasaki Japan relevant to the opera "Madame Butterfly's historical origins and its Nagasaki setting.
An evening filled with live & silent auctions featuring dozens of cakes and donated items has been held now for 25 years with the proceeds going to support the Romig Middle School’s Music Department.
In appreciation for the public support the students perform for the donors.
Watch and listen to the Jazz Band as they entertain with a lively number that includes visual antics.
Link to Video of the Middle School's Jazz Band Performance:
“A Night of Music” was this year's Service High School benefit concert. A highlight of the evening’s musical performances was this number presented by the Jazz Band.
Watch and listen as Christopher Klevorn debuts in an impressive performance as the featured soloist accompanied by his Jazz Band classmates.
Watch to the end and you will feel like joining in with the well deserved applause from not only the audience but also from his Jazz Band member peers.
Link to Video of the High School's Jazz Band Performance with the Soloist's Debut:
Contemporaneously taken Photos including our Rotary Club's efforts to assist with the Middle School's fundraising efforts and meeting up with the trombone soloist who invited us to attend his High School's concert:
At the Middle School's Concert:
At the High School's Concert:
Commentary and Photos relevant to the opera "Madame Butterfly" beginning with views looking up onto the hill above Nagasaki's port where the Glover Gardens and House are situated. As referenced in the commentary the real life son of the opera's protagonist, Cho-Cho San (Madame Butterfly) grew up here:
And here is the commentary relating to the historical basis of the opera "Madame Butterfly:"
The Real Life Story of Madame Butterfly
Was There a Real Madame Butterfly?
Jan van Rij, author of Madame Butterfly: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San, reveals the story behind the story.
BY JAN VAN RIJ
The story of Madame Butterfly is an old one. In 1616, the Italian adventurer Carletti wrote that as soon as foreign sailors arrived in Japan "the pimps who control this traffic in women call on them ... and enquire whether they would like to purchase or to acquire in any other method they please, a girl for the period of their sojourn," a contract to that effect being signed with the go-between or the family. This practice was continued by the Dutch merchants during the 250 years that they were allowed, as the only foreigners, to stay in Japan on the tiny, artificial island of Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki. It still existed when, in 1885, the French navy officer and author Pierre Loti arrived, who invented nothing new in his well-documented and very popular French novel about his "marriage" of six weeks with "Madame Chrysanthème."
So, when, in 1892, Irvin and Jennie Correll came to Nagasaki as missionaries of the American Methodist Mission, it was not surprising that their attention was drawn to this practice. They were initially discreet about it; it would only be much later that Jennie recounted one particular story which she said she had heard from her local shopkeeper around 1895, although the events in the story had taken place more than twenty years earlier.
When Jennie went home on leave to the U.S. in 1897, she stayed some time with her brother John Luther Long, a Philadelphia lawyer. Long had literary aspirations and wrote as a sideline. The year after his sister's visit, he published in the Century Illustrated Magazine a short story called "Madame Butterfly," which was based on the Nagasaki story his sister had told him. Long's story was soon afterward turned into a play by the playwright David Belasco. Puccini saw the play in London in the summer of 1900 and was inspired to create the opera of the same name.
The few, simple facts that Jennie Correll had learned in Nagasaki were professionally amplified by Long and Belasco into a well-structured novella and an elaborate one-act play by adding numerous authentic details, most of which had been taken from Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthème. Persons like Pinkerton, Goro, and Suzuki are clearly inspired by Loti's prototypes. But Long's account was also based on the events conveyed to him by his sister, many of which remained hidden for a long time, only gradually becoming public knowledge.
This is the story Jennie Correll told her brother: Around 1870 there lived in Nagasaki three Scottish brothers: Thomas, Alex and Alfred Glover. One of them (probably Alex, although we don't know for sure) had an intimate relationship with a Japanese woman called Kaga Maki, who worked as an entertainer in a local teahouse under the name of Cho-san, Miss Butterfly. Normally such a link with a foreign man was considered a temporary "marriage," for which an amount was paid to the "bride" (usually 100 yen or 20 Mexican dollars) and which could be ended by the "husband" at any time.
In the course of her relationship with the Scotsman, Kaga Maki became pregnant and on December 8, 1870, she gave birth to their son, naming him Shinsaburo. The father later abandoned the woman and her child and eventually left Japan. After a while, the father's brother Thomas and the latter's common law Japanese wife, Awajiya Tsuru, successfully claimed the boy, who then became part of the household of his adoptive mother. His name was changed into Tomisaburo (Tom, for short) and he eventually became known as Tom Glover. During the time that Jennie Correll lived in Nagasaki, Tom Glover, having finished his education in Japanese and American universities, returned to his hometown, took up residence there and established himself officially as the head of a newly registered Japanese family called Guraba (which is the Japanese transliteration of Glover).
Those who knew Tom Glover was Butterfly's son remained discreet about it, although John Luther Long privately identified him as such. By the early 1930s Jennie Correll and the Japanese soprano Miura Tamaki (who sang the Butterfly role numerous times and had spoken with John Luther Long a few years earlier about the facts of the story) were the only surviving witnesses. When questioned about his identity in a 1931 interview, Tom Glover confirmed that his mother had been the original Madame Butterfly. Research in Japanese family registers has confirmed these facts.
What happened to the real persons of this drama? After her child was taken away from her, Kaga Maki, the real Cho-cho-san, married a Japanese man with whom she moved away. Subsequently they divorced and she came back to Nagasaki, where she died in 1906.
Her son, Tom Glover, the real life model of Butterfly's son, Trouble, in the opera, lived in Nagasaki. He married a woman called Nakano Waka, whose father was a British merchant, but they had no children. He lost his wife during World War II. The years of the war were hard on him and in August 1945, after the surrender of Japan and during the chaos caused by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, he committed suicide.
Thus the heartbreaking drama of Puccini's opera was exceeded by the real life tragedies hidden underneath. There is no evidence that Kaga Maki, the original Butterfly, ever saw Tomisaburo again. Her son, who in the opera is promised that one day his name, Dolore (Trouble, or Sorrow), will be changed into Gioia (Joy), remained troubled until his death.
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2102 arrives in Jim Thorp, PA
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**The brady bunch **
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