Historic Opera

LEOPOLDO METLICOVITZ
Madama Butterfly Set

Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868: Trieste, Italy - 1944), like Hohenstein, was a commercial artist, lithographer, painter, and graphic artist. He did many opera designs and many of his creations found their way to posters, postcards, and other paper media to advertise new operatic works or Italian products. His postcards can be identified by his initials, "LM", somewhere in the design.

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A set of twelve postcards were designed by the Italian artist/lithographer Leopoldo Metlicovitz for the world premiere of Madama Butterfly. Each one of these postcards (ten of them seen in the slide show above) has been signed by the first Cio-Cio-San, Rosina Storchio, for the Buenos Aires premiere of the revised three-act version, 1904.

This set was sold wrapped in an envelope, as were many postcard sets. In many cases the envelopes are much harder to acquire today than the postcards! The individual cards in the original set were numbered 209 through 220 (the number was printed on the address side).

The most notable reproduction of this set were the postcards produced for the American tour of the English version, Madame Butterfly by the Henry W. Savage Company. These postcards use the same images but say "Madam Butterfly" on the front with English text from the opera. They may also feature a Savage advertisement on the back.

All of these postcards were featured on a segment of "CBS News Sunday Morning," with Charles Osgood.