IT'S EASY to understand why the Korean-born soprano Rosa Lee Thomas gets more requests to sing Madama Butterfly than she can cope with. She really gives the definitive performance in Puccini's opera.
A pitch-perfect voice, a delicate stage presence and a heart-rending performance make her Butterfly one guaranteed to reduce the most cynical to an emotional wreck.
It was of her that Shakespeare must have been thinking when he wrote "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now".
While her Butterfly dominated this production by the Ukrainian National Opera of Odessa, it was by no means a one-star show.
Tenor Akhmed Agadi from Kazakhstan was a powerful Pink-erton, the American sailor who marries and then abandons Butterfly. His popular and lengthy love duet with Butterfly was perfectly handled, both musically and emotionally.
Mezzo-soprano Tatiana Busuioc was a surprisingly characterful servant to Butterfly and Goro the marriage broker was given a delightfully amusing performance from Anatol Arcea.
This being a production from Ellen Kent, one might expect a few gimmicks and there were some - a large bowl of real fish, for example - but nothing that took anything from the story of love, betrayal and death.
The production design was attractive with lots of flowers, a Japanese house with sliding walls and a weeping willow, and the costumes were excellent.
But all this would have been as nothing without the central performances, played with genuine emotion and all sung beautifully.
The chorus came into their own with the Humming Chorus, sung as Butterfly, servant and child awaited the return of Pink-erton in silhouette. Here, too, the orchestra under conductor Andriy Yurkevych had an important role to play.
Above all, it was a production which captured the raw emotion at the centre of the opera. Don't take a handkerchief with you, take a box of them.
