Elizabeth Caballero has built an opera career playing strong women, and she knows a bit about mettle herself. When she was 6 she and her family boarded a boat off the shore of Cuba and set off for America, as part of the 1980 mass immigration known as the Mariel Boatlift. “Being a child, it was an adventure for me,” says the 38-year-old soprano, who makes her role debut this month in the Lyric Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly. “I was told I was going to visit my aunt in the United States. I had no idea that I was not going to come back. I thought I’d be back home in a week or so.” It took guts for her parents, who were in their 30s, to board a 24-passenger boat with Elizabeth and her 3-year-old sister, but the new life they built in Miami made Elizabeth strong – and also made her eternally grateful for what her parents did. “For me they are, and always will be, my heroes.”

Elizabeth began her vocal studies in Miami, which eventually led to prestigious apprenticeships such as San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program. Along the way a certain tenor name Luciano Pavarotti heard her sing in a competition in Miami and strongly encouraged her to pursue an opera career – selecting her as a finalist out of a field of 2,000 singers.

“I thought, if he thinks that I have what it takes, then I’m going to see this through,” she says. Her 2001 win at the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions helped propel a career that has taken her to houses large and small; in 2006 she made her Met debut as Musetta and her house debut there last season as Frasquita. Lyric audiences got to hear her at the opening of the Kauffman Center last season, where she sang Liù in Turandot and all but stole the show – in front of a bevy of international critics. Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker: “Most notable was the Cuban-American soprano Elizabeth Caballero who sang Liù in sensuously glowing tones, her charged legato shaping the music into cogent paragraphs. Liù’s death scene tore at the heart.”

Surprisingly, Elizabeth says the role of Cio-Cio San (Butterfly) did not attract her at first. The former geisha, who marries an American sailor only to be abandoned with child, does appear at first glance to be weak and gullible. “Don’t get me wrong, I really love the Puccini score, but I just did not care for the character. I found her to be so stupid to stay around for this man, who was obviously using her for his own ends.” But the more she studied the role, the more she realized how wrong she had been. “Now I’m eating my own words, because she is one of the most strong-willed characters in opera. I love strong characters, characters who take a stand.” Butterfly is so in love with Lieutenant Pinkerton that she is willing to sacrifice so that their child can have a decent upbringing – albeit with Pinkerton’s other, American wife. “When she realizes that he’s not coming back and that she has given them the child, all her honor is gone. And honor is something that is so important for Japanese culture.”

Elizabeth says is glad she waited until this point in her career to take on this role, which is one of the most demanding in all of opera, as Lyric Opera music director Ward Holmquist concurs:  “One of the things that I learned early on about the piece is that, because of the enormous demands that are placed on the principal role, the conductor and the Butterfly have to work out very carefully how they want to pace things, because she has so much time onstage … nearly the whole opera.” Ward said he’d had his eye on Elizabeth for some time, and when she did so well as Liù he felt she should consider her first Butterfly. “There was something about the way she sang Puccini that I thought was just incredibly compelling. There is a sense of what I would call phrasing – the way she shapes phrases, articulates the musical peaks of Puccini.” He says he is thrilled that she chose to sing the role here first, one that is sure to become a standard for her. “I think she’s a major voice and a key interpreter.”

The unique thing about Madama Butterfly is that it contains not one but two problematic characters. Pinkerton can often be portrayed as a love-em-and-leave-em cad, but in fact such hasty weddings were common among sailors in earlier centuries. “His friend told him, ‘Well I got married, so why don’t you go do it, too,’ ” Elizabeth says. “ ‘It’s what we do when we come ashore here, we get married to you and it’s no big deal. And it’s fun and then you leave.’ … It’s just tradition, it’s accepted. So he’s just going along with the flow.” Pinkerton is quite young himself, and to his credit when he realizes the consequences of his actions in Act 3, he does indeed feel remorse for the situation.

Still, the opera remains troubling for some, perhaps precisely because of its gnawing ambiguities. Just what are we supposed to think? “That’s one of the aspects of the story that is interesting,” Ward says, “that it’s open to so many different interpretations. … From my point of view Pinkerton came to personify the way that Americans were perceived in the world at the time. And maybe it’s just as true today as it was then.” Pinkerton is a real-life person real frailties, he adds, “but I think the authors were trying to tell a much bigger story here, one about the interaction of cultures.”

Butterfly will also feature Dinyar Vanya as Pinkerton, Elizabeth Tredent as Suzuki, Weston Hurt as Sharpless and Doug Jonesas Goro. The director is Mark Streshinsky, a familiar presence at the Lyric.

The production runs from September 15th through the 24th at the Kauffman Center. For tickets call 816-471-7344 or go to kcopera.org.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.