Based on Puccini's opera, "Madame Butterfly" tells the tragic story of Butterfly, a 15-year-old geisha who marries Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, a U.S. Navy officer on leave in Nagasaki. Pinkerton, intending no more than a fling, is warned by Sharpless, the counsul in the port, that the young girl is taking the marriage very seriously. Pinkerton sails away, leaving Butterfly alone with her faithful maid Suzuki. Three years pass, and when Pinkerton's ship finally drops anchor in Nagasaki and he returns with an American wife, Butterfly's vigil ends in tragedy.