A sanitised Butterfly that flutters above the depths

Opera Madama Butterfly Royal Opera, Covent Garden

In deference to the needs of out-of-towners, Covent Garden’s management opened this revival with a show that began at the ungodly hour of noon. Watching grand opera before 6pm seems faintly sinful to me, but it was refreshing to be part of a raptly attentive audience that wasn’t the usual blasé first-night crowd and I hail such matinees as an excellent thing.

I only wish that the Royal Opera always presented standard repertory as meticulously as it does here (I can’t get the wretched Trovatore earlier this season out of my head).

The presence of the original directors must have helped: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser returned to rehearse their 2003 production, and the amount of fine detail indicated that it had benefited from their attention.

For my taste, they take a too sanitised approach to what is essentially a brutally honest view of the first phase of American cultural imperialism. Caurier and Leiser don’t create any suggestion of the poverty of Butterfly’s hinterland, and several recent stagings have hit harder on the theme of sleazy sexual exploitation. But it seems ungrateful to complain when the story is so clearly told through such sensitive characterisation and visual imagery of a spare, cool beauty, that stands in rich counterpoint to Puccini’s sumptuously lyrical score.

Ermonela Jaho sings the title role (to be followed later in the run by Anna Maria Martinez). After her affecting interpretations of Mimi, Manon and Suor Angelica, this Albanian soprano has become something of a favourite here, and her nuanced portrayal of Butterfly will surely win her more admirers.

But it’s a lightweight interpretation, emphasising the girl’s fragility and innocence rather than her stubborn self-delusion, and vocally she is on the light side for the climaxes of “Che tua madre” and the death scene. In the interests of preserving her soft-grained timbre, perhaps this is a part she shouldn’t sing too often.

Marcelo Puente makes a handsome dog of a Pinkerton, rather throaty at first, but delivering sturdily in the love duet and “Addio, fiorito asil”; Scott Hendricks is a decent Sharpless and Elizabeth DeShong is terrific as a fiercely defensive Suzuki.

What lifts the performance, however, is the superlative conducting of the inexhaustible Antonio Pappano, taking a busman’s Innocence: Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho as Butterfly holiday from his heavy lifting on

Die Meistersinger. He gives the score a sharp, brilliant edge but never loses touch with the emotional core of an opera that ranks among the very greatest of the 20th century.

Until April 25. Tickets: 020 7304 4000; roh.org.uk