By MATTHEW GUREWITSCH [NY Times, 24 September 2006]

LAST Monday afternoon Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director of “The English Patient,” was back where he has been happiest lately: within inches of the action. For several weeks before, work on his production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” had been unfolding on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, where the production opens Monday evening, raising the curtain on the regime of Peter Gelb, the company’s new general manager. But for one last day rehearsals were back in a basement studio, where Mr. Minghella could study nuances in close-up.