Japan, early twentieth century. U.S. Navy Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton inspects the house he has leased from a marriage broker. The broker, Goro, has procured him three servants and a geisha wife, Cio-Cio-San, known as Madama Butterfly. He is enchanted with the fragile Cio-Cio-San. Cio-Cio-San is heard in the distance joyously singing of her wedding. In a quiet moment, Cio-Cio-San shows her bridegroom her few earthly treasures and tells him of her intention to embrace his Christian faith. The Imperial Commissioner performs the wedding ceremony, and the guests toast the couple. The celebration is interrupted by Cio-Cio-San's uncle, a Buddhist priest, who bursts in, cursing the girl for having renounced her ancestors' religion. Alone with Cio-Cio-San in the moonlit garden, her husband dries her tears, and she joins him in singing of their love.

Jerusalem mourns its defeat, which places its fate in the hands of Nabucco, King of Babylon. Ismaël warns them that Nabucco is approaching the Temple. He remains alone with Ferena, the daughter of the Babylonian king, who has been taken hostage by the Hebrews, and confesses his love for her. However, Ferena's sister, Abigaille, also loves Ismael. In this new production, Arnaud Bernard sets the plot in the aesthetic context of the Italian Risorgimento. When it premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1842, Nabucco was an immediate triumph. In an Italy then in the throes of nationalist movements, the audience immediately identified with the Hebrews held captive in Babylon. The chorus of slaves, "Va, pensiero," thus became one of the most famous arias in the history of opera.

This new Dynamic opera was performed in Donizetti's native city of Bergamo, during the most important world festival dedicated to the Italian composer. The opera is set in a rural environment and the action takes place in a country farm. It is a brilliant comedy with many points of contact with semi-serious operas. The choice of this subject must have been strongly influenced by the successes of Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula. The music is folksy and the melodic writing frank and straightforward with a broad variety of passages of high technical content and more elegiac in character; such is the case of the most famous piece in the whole opera, the aria "Una furtiva lagrima", which is also the leitmotiv of the soundtrack of the 2005 film Match Point, directed by Woody Allen.