M. Butterfly opens in present-day Paris. Rene Gallimard is in a small prison cell. He describes his monotonous daily routine, and then confides that he is no ordinary prisoner, but a celebrity. People talk about him at parties from Amsterdam to New York. Scene 2 shows three people at a party joking about Gallimard, and the joke obviously has something to do with sex. Scene 3 returns to Gallimard's cell, and he confides that he has been loved by the "Perfect Woman." He then says that to understand his story, the audience must know the opera Madame Butterfly, by Giacomo Puccini. He describes the opera and plays some of the music from it on his tape recorder. His old school friend Marc appears as one of the characters, and Gallimard assumes.....
