What’s On: Mariposa, Lighthouse Poole and Mast Mayflower Studios

MARIPOSA, a queer tragedy inspired by Puccini’s seminal opera Madame Butterfly, will be on stage at Lighthouse Poole and Mast Mayflower Studios.

Under the flickering neon lights of a distant Caribbean port, a local rent boy and a foreign sailor fall ominously in love – and a young man is asked to sacrifice his gender in exchange for love and a better life.

Mariposa, butterfly in Spanish, is an operatic dance drama choreographed by Carlos Pons Guerra. It transports Puccini’s Orientalist libretto to post-revolution Cuba, to a dockland world of faded showgirls, hopeful rent boys, troubled sailors and divine queer spirits. Engulfed in a tropical storm of repressed desires, the production is a passionate and deeply moving exploration of what we are ready to sacrifice in order to be loved and accepted.

Nicknamed the Pedro Almodovar of dance by the BBC, Carlos Pons Guerra is one of the UK’s leading voices in contemporary queer dance. Created in 2021, Mariposa revisits the problematic gender and colonialist aspects of Madame Butterfly and asks how iconic operas and narratives like this can remain relevant today.

Mariposa is set to an original score by three-time winner of the Spanish MAX Awards for the Performing Arts, Luis Miguel Cobo, which takes its inspiration from Caribbean sounds as well as Puccini. The libretto is by French-Indian writer Karthika Nair. Costume and set designs are by 2023 Olivier Award nominee Ryan Dawson Laight, and lighting is by Guerra’s long-time collaborator Barnaby Booth.

The cast includes Dan Baines as Preston, the sailor, Holly Saw as Kate, while Elle Taylor-Francis and Jaivant Patel share the role of Madame Gertrudis, the brothel owner.

Mariposa is at Lighthouse Poole on Tuesday 15th October and at Mast Mayflower Studios on 22nd and 23rd November. Tickets are from £10. For more information and bookings visit www.lighthousepoole.co.uk or www.mayflower.org.uk