Miss Saigon Miss Saigon Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly", and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover. The setting of the plot is relocated to 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and "Madame Butterfly"'s story of marriage between an American lieutenant and a geisha is replaced by a romance between a United States Marine and a South Vietnamese bargirl. The musical was premièred at the Theatre Royal, Drury
Maria Cebotari Figaro", Violetta in "La traviata" and Salome in the same season. She concentrated on four composers – Mozart, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. Richard Strauss described her as "the best all-rounder on the European stage, and she is never late and she never cancels". Herbert von Karajan, during a BBC interview decades after her death, said she was the greatest "Madame Butterfly" he had ever conducted. Beside her successful career at the opera houses, Cebotari appeared in several films related to opera—such as "Verdi's Three Women", "Maria Malibran", "The Dream of Madame Butterfly". She also played in the movie "Odessa in