Madama Butterfly’s Most Unlikely Muse

W. Anthony Sheppard's recent research on the role of music boxes in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Turandot will be featured in an episode of the Emmy Award-winning PBS show "State of the Arts" on December 2nd.  The program will be broadcast by WHYY in Philadelphia at 3:30 PM and by New Jersey's NJTV at 8:00 PM.  The episode will then be available on the NJTV website. You can also the new PBS show on YouTube featuring this story!

In a New York Times piece, you can read about how music professor W. Anthony Sheppard finds (in Morristown, NJ, of all places) a 19th century music box that may well have been the original source of two signature melodies in Puccini's famous opera.