Her hospitality interferes with his efforts to read the letter. Goro brings Sharpless to Butterfly to read her a letter from Pinkerton, but she insists on receiving him as an honored guest. Butterfly still believes that Pinkerton will return to her, as he promised, but Suzuki doubts it. Butterfly and her maid Suzuki are living in utter poverty in the house on the hill.

Pinkerton has sailed away and three years have passed. As night falls, Pinkerton realizes how much he loves Butterfly. Smiling through her tears, she tells him that although everyone else has rejected her, she is happy only with Pinkerton. Pinkerton orders them away and then tries to comfort the weeping Butterfly. He has heard that Butterfly has renounced her religion, and he calls all her relatives to renounce her. Sharpless leaves with a word of caution that he believes Butterfly is seriously in love, but Pinkerton has already turned to his new relatives, urging them to celebrate his happiness. The Imperial Commissioner and Official Registrar then perform the civil wedding ceremony. Butterfly tells Pinkerton that she is willing to give up her own gods and to adopt his religion. She shows Pinkerton some of her possessions, among them the dagger with which her father had committed hara-kiri at the Mikado’s orders. Butterfly talks of her unhappy family and tells Sharpless that at fifteen, a geisha is already an old woman. She is the happiest girl in Japan and comes to answer the summons of love.

Just then, the voice of Butterfly is heard as she and her geisha friends ascend the hill.

Pinkerton asks Sharpless to join him in a series of toasts, among them one to the real wedding and the real American wife he will surely have one day. Sharpless tries to make the carefree lieutenant seriously consider the step he is about to take. Consul at Nagasaki, Sharpless, who is surprised by the marriage contract Pinkerton is about to sign: It is valid for 999 years but can be annulled at the end of each month. Pinkerton, USN, the house that Pinkerton has rented to occupy with his bride-to-be, the geisha Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly).

Puccini opera madame butterfly