For the past few years, the San Francisco Opera has stumbled while "Englishing" opera titles, arbitrarily and inconsistently. Instead of using the original Italian or German title, followed by translation in parentheses if necessary — Aida or Rigoletto would be examples of no such necessity — SFO publications are advertising English names for operas ... at times.
Still staying away from "So (Do) They All" to present Cosi fan tutte, helpful marketing executives in search of reaching to larger audiences came up with "The Capulets and the Montagues" replacing I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and even substituting "Mephistopheles" for Mefistofele — a Hebrew/Greek/Latin word instead of Italian for English-speaking audiences. Just about every review ignored the title in the program and used the right name, confusing copy editors everywhere.
And so it goes, until the present ultimate weirdness when the Englishizers are advertising "MadamE Butterfly" instead of MadamA Butterfly, the Italian composer's strange mix of an Italian and an English word as the title for an Italian-language opera (about a Japanese heroine). Of course, "madame" is French, but let's not go there.
Unless it's changed by now, the very organization perpetrating this dark deed is stating on its very own website, advertising "MadamE Butterfly" in the season listing, yet directly below: "For a complete listing of all MadamA Butterfly performances at San Francisco Opera, visit our online performance archive." It's not a typo, just confused people being hoisted on their own petard.
Anyway, let's get ready for next season's "The Trojans," "A Masked Ball," and "Cinderella" because lots of people would not pay good money for Les Troyens, Un Ballo Maschera, and La Cenerentola. Thank heaven for Norma (not "Of the North") and Susannah (not "Shoshana" or lily).