Despite the incessant coughing and overtly assertive scent of floral perfume filling up the Arsht Center, soprano Kelly Kaduce (Cio-Cio-San/”Butterfly”) and mezzo-soprano Caitlin McKechney (Suzuki) delivered an extraordinary performance in “Madama Butterfly” on the opening night of Florida Grand Opera‘s 74th season.

“Madama Butterfly.” Brittany Mazzurco

On the surface, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa’s libretto is a cliché written by two men about a girl who falls in love and is disowned by her family. “Butterfly” is a scandalous tale of love and loss, betrayal and heartbreak, abandonment and greed. Cue suicide of the beautiful maiden (Butterfly) who is, yes, a t(ween)ager married off to Pinkerton (Martin Nusspaumer), a handsome American solider.

And, this is where the story gets good.

Kaduce’s gorgeous performance captured the naïve, innocent face of a girl (of fifteen) who falls in love for the first time. We all know know the imprint of a first love, and this propelled Butterfly into the arms of a foreign man, a coward, an American, who gave her the opportunity to escape the life of a geisha. She earnestly gives her heart and soul, abandons her faith (Buddhism for the “American God”/Christianity/White-hetero-normative male) and forsakes her culture and her customs for him. She raises the American flag in front of her home.

Butterfly is an intelligent, fiery and engaging young woman who takes up the responsibility of raising a child while her husband is overseas and marries another woman. She studied each ship in the harbor everyday for three years while waiting for Pinkerton’s ship, the “Abraham Lincoln”, to return. She understood commitment. She gave her life to this ideal. “I gave tears to the earth, and it returned flowers to me,” she said while pining for Pinkerton as her son, named “Sorrow,” waves a small American flag. Kaduce’s voice and performance earnestly portrayed Butterfly’s epically tragic life.

“Madama Butterfly” is an astonishingly contemporary and important story that reveals how much we haven’t changed. 114 years after its debut, “Madama Buttefly” addresses the issue (oh-so-quietly) of child marriage (for money, property, sex, etc.), and unbridled American power and idolatry. According to the International Center for Research on Women, one in three girls will be married off before the age of 18, which represents about 14 million girls a year.

Butterfly was not just a victim of love, but a victim of two thousand years of history and storytelling that uses women and girls as objects to be possessed instead of cherished. Maybe I’m a bit oversensitive. But I think that’s the point of opera. It knocks us upside the head and makes us think when we don’t expect it to. Go see “Madama Butterfly” and keep this in mind.

“Madama Butterfly” will be performed at the Arsht Center on November 18, 21, 22 and at the Broward Center on December 4 and 6. Subscriptions for the 2014-15 season start at $40 in Miami and $51 in Fort Lauderdale. FGO’s Box Office is located at the Doral Center on 8390 NW 25 St., Miami, and is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday during the season.Tickets may also be purchased by phone at 800-741-1010 or online at www.fgo.org.