The Source:

     Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It debuted in 1989 in London, and transferred to Broadway in 1991. It's based off of Madame Butterfly, a three act opera by Giacomo Puccini* written in 1904. In the opera, an American naval officer marries a 15 year old Japanese girl named Butterfly for kicks, intending to divorce her when he finds an American wife. He leaves her immediately after their wedding night, and she spends the next three years remaining faithful to him. When he comes back, she excitedly reveals that she has had a child by him. He arrives with an American wife who has agreed to take care of the child, but he's unable to face Butterfly. Butterfly agrees to give up her son if she can see Pinkerton one last time, and as he does, she commits suicide. It's considered a classic opera, and inspired numerous other works, the most notable besides Miss Saigon being M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang.** However, the musical also drew inspiration from another source.

     This photo was seen by composer Alain Boublil in a magazine. It's a photo of a girl departing from Ho Chi Minh Airport to go to the United States to live with her father, an American GI she'd never met. The image struck the writers as particularly powerful because her mother can be seen standing on in silence as her daughter cries, consumed by her grief, but wanting her daughter to have a better life. The photo was taken several weeks before the city of Saigon fell to the Viet Kong, ensuring that the girl would most likely never see her mother again. The image brought to mind "The Ultimate Sacrifice," where a mother gives up her life with a child to ensure that the child has a life. The composers drew this parallel to Madame Butterfly, and in the wake of the recent Vietnam war, saw an opportunity for a fresh, new story to be told.

Thus Miss Saigon was born.

*While you've probably heard his name, he was a big deal in the opera world. For me, at least, the thing keeping him on the radar of musical theatre fans is a lyric in Ah, But Underneath! a song written by Stephen Sondheim to take the spot of Uptown, Downtown/The Story of Lucy and Jessie. "She was smart, tart, dry as a martini, ah but underneath, She was all heart, something by Puccini."

**David Henry Hwang is (I believe) the only Asian American to ever have a play put on Brodway, and M. Butterfly was a smash hit, winning all sorts of awards including the Tony Award for Best New Play.