The life of a leading lady in opera is tragically short, as was demonstrated last week in performances at Oxford’s New Theatre on consecutive nights of a trio of firm favourites in the genre, Verdi’s Rigoletto and La Traviata and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. By the end of each the heroine had been despatched to meet her maker by, respectively, murder (Gilda in Rigoletto), fatal illness (Violetta in La Trav) and suicide (the eponymous Butterfly).

These great works were brought to warmly appreciative audiences here in pleasingly traditional style by the redoubtable Ellen Kent, who has been touring her opera productions, most of Eastern European provenance, across Britain for 23 years. A pal of hers for much of this time, I fondly recall a trip with her a decade ago to the then little-visited country of Moldova. (Tony Hawkes went later.) In the case of this latest trio of productions, The story of this latest trio of productions reaching here came close to rivalling the drama in the works, with the company in flight from war-torn Ukraine with sets, props and costumes.

Interval drinks with Ellen were significantly enlivened by accounts of this.Enlivening the operas themselves were Ellen’s trademark touches of showmanship. These included, in the first moments of the first of them, in the distinctly lively court of Duke of Mantua (Giorgi Meladze), the appearance of a huge golden eagle called Nabucco, greyhounds Della and Harry (from Greyhound Gap Oxford) and a number of completelynaked women.

Musically, all was excellently managed under the baton each night of Vasyl Vasylenko, the music director of the opera company in Donetsk, a focus for Ukraine’s separatist troubles. Soprano Maria Tonina wrung the withers as both Gilda and Butterfly, while Alyona Kistenyova ensured there was no dry eye in the house as Violetta.