BWW Reviews: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Hackney Empire, September 3 2013

With no surtitles to sit between the audience and the performance, some might think it difficult to follow the plot - but it isn't. Just think of the cruellest, saddest thing that could be going on, and that's what's happening. You don't need to speak Italian to know the what's in store for Butterfly, having fallen for that kind of man and with her innocene so raw. The power of the singing and music is stronger for the absence of distractions - theatre as communication writ large.

David Woodward's Pinkerton is all swaggering, uniformed confidence, marrying the teenage Japanese girl almost on a whim, leaving her with a child and enough money (but not enough love) to live. Verunka Vlkova (Butterfly) is as tiny and fragile as her character's name suggests, but fills the auditorium with her voice, particularly the during opera's high point, Un Bel Di - it's heartrending stuff. The principals get strong support, especially from David Menezes' seedy, pimpish marriage-broker (Goro) and Susanne Holmes' dutiful maid (Suzuki), whose fears for her own fate and that of Butterfly and her child are etched on her face throughout.

It's a gruelling emotions-wringing evening - but it's Madama Butterfly, so that's hardly unexpected. And, for all the anguish on stage, one is left with the abiding memory of Puccini's music, soaring, and swooping, over and through us, as he tells his tale of an American's lust and a Japanese's love. To see, and to hear, uncompromised, full-on opera like this in a grand old venue like the Hackney Empire, is a privilege indeed.

Co-opera-co's Madama Butterfly is at the Hackney Empire on 6 September and on tour.