In English 002, I’ve asked my students to contribute songs to the Soundtrack of Our Reading.  We dig deep into our musical archives to match lyrics with our text. This semester we read M. Butterfly.  At the end of the play, Rene acts out his favorite scene from the opera Madame Butterfly. This is when he says, “Butterfly, Butterfly…” This is when you hear the aria “Love Duet” in the background. It is so fitting that the voice behind the song comes from the throat of Maria Callas. As Rene suffers, so has Maria. Like Rene, she is was a Drama Queen. She was driven to destruction by her own ego. Maria may have been the perfect singer to interpret the tragedy of the story.  I select Alanis Morissette to voice the irony.

Below I share a post from our class blog: