Moffatt Oxenbould’s much-loved production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has served Opera Australia well. Since it premiered in 1997, it has been performed over 150 times – more than any other production in the company’s repertoire. But this final two-week season at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre marks its farewell.

Twenty years on, it still looks beautiful but in the wake of the stunning, contemporary, tougher and far more original production that Àlex Ollé and his team from Spanish theatre company La Fura dels Baus staged for OA’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour in 2014, Oxenbould’s production now feels a bit dated and safe.

^{Sian Pendry and Karah Son in Madama Butterfly. Photograph © Prudence Upton}

Visually it still has plenty to offer and the larger Capitol Theatre stage gives it more room to breathe than the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House where it was last seen in 2015. The elegant set by Peter England and Russell Cohen with its wooden platform surrounded by water, and sliding panels to evoke the house that Pinkerton rents for his young Geisha bride Cio-Cio-San (or Butterfly), has clean lines and a simple beauty, while the...