A regular visitor to Oxford over 30 years, WNO’s acclaimed production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly from director Joachim Herz returned to the New Theatre last week to delight two packed houses.

That it still looked good under revival director Caroline Chaney was partly thanks to a refurbishment in 1998 with the generous help of the Peter Moores Foundation. That it still sounded wonderful was entirely due to conductor Simon Phillippo’s sure-handed command of WNO’s marvellous orchestra – on superb form throughout last week – and the performances of the top-flight singers in the named roles and (as ever with this company) in the chorus, some of whom are pictured above.

Judith Howarth offered a heart-stopping portrait of the mistreated Butterfly, though realism went out of the window over the matter of her age (hardly 15!). So it did in respect of the child produced by her brief marital union with the caddish Lieut Pinkerton – presented here in a thrilling vocal performance by Russell Thomas. The lad was white and Mr Thomas black. Colour-blind casting is (properly) judged more important than verismo. That Pinkerton’s new wife (Alison Dunne) was shown to be possessed of a scheming determination to carry the child back to the States was, incidentally, a new element in the action for me, though it worked very well, especially since this Pinkerton was himself more than usually shameless in his villainy.