During their weekend affair in Fatal Attraction, Dan Gallagher and Alex Forrest are listening to music from the opera Madame Butterfly. Dan tells Alex a story about the first time that he saw the opera.
Dan: My father, he took me to the old Met. I was five years old.
Alex: Did it make sense?
Dan: I got most of it. There was this US sailor settin' up house with this Japanese lady. That was all fine, but in the final act, after he left her, my father told me that she's gonna kill herself. I was terrified. I was, I climbed underneath my chair.
Later that evening, when Dan gets out of bed after sex, Alex protests that she doesn't want him to leave. Alex then proceeds to slit her wrists while Dan is still there in some sort of desperate attempt to prevent him from leaving.
Was Alex's suicide attempt the reason behind the earlier Madame Butterfly dialogue? I am unfamiliar with the story of Madame Butterfly, other than Dan's recollection of it. Are there other symbolic references to Madame Butterfly throughout the movie?