Pjotr Sapegin's Madama Butterfly

This piece is a shortened version of the opera with the same name, Madama Butterfly. It's about a Japanese Geisha who falls in love with an American navy officer, and then gets pregnant with his kid. Eventually he leaves her but promises to come back for her and the kid. When he comes back however, he's married to an american women and has kids with her, but takes Madame Butterfly's kid regardless.

This particular rendition of the story is a highly insightful one. Basically it gives a more literal rendition to the titular character's name, and gives a more literal meaning to the story. She falls in love and enjoys her "spring time" with the American, losing herself to the lust and joy of the experiences and lets herself let loose. She doesn't want it end and is torn when she finally has to part with him, but finds hope and comfort in the child that's left with her. She raises it as a memory of what she once had, what she'll have again. It's a memory of him that'll stay with her. Eventually when he comes she regains her hope, before it's pulled away with an agonizing quickness and nonchalantness when he introduces his wife to her. He seems to have no issues with introducing her to the wife, nor taking the child from her right in front of the wife. This further wrecks the girl's psyche, being led to believe that all they had was a fling. That he doesn't care about her at all and all this time she spent waiting has been for naught. Eventually she can't take it and carves herself to pieces until nothing remains but a butterfly, all that remains of a memory of happiness long gone. The piece might have been going for the effect that she hoped to leave with a happy memory, because it ends with a return to her first meeting of the American. That or it might have gone even further back and she might have wanted to wipe herself clean, forget everything there was to do with the American. Point is that it's a story of love and misery. Unrequited love with a string of hope that's laid across time before snapped (Quite literally) painfully.