Sane and lucid opera stagings that don’t get in the way of the music may not win many shock-horror headlines. But they generally give sterling service to companies sensible enough to mount them. So Tim Albery’s intelligent production of Puccini’s clash-of-civilisations weepie looks like being an excellent investment for Opera North.

To judge from the deluded Butterfly’s frock when she goes all Westernised in Act II, the story has been updated – perhaps to the early 1960s (she also wildly waves an American flag with 50 stars on it when Pinkerton’s ship returns). And a modern street-girl, straight out of Miss Saigon, impassively views the heroine’s bloody corpse at the end while coolly sipping a coffee – an addition clearly meant to imply that what we’ve seen is “just another day” on the mean streets of downtown Nagasaki.

That’s an incongruous garnish, distracting attention from the essence of the tragedy at exactly the wrong moment. But it is a small blip in what is otherwise a staging full of truthful nuances and intimate observations, placed in a set (by Hildegard Bechtler) that employs all the usual Japanese sliding screens, silhouettes and Hokusai-inspired mountain vistas – but with a stylish, pastel-shaded subtlety.

In front of these evocative backgrounds the French soprano Anne-Sophie Duprels offers a magnificently convincing interpretation of Butterfly. In the marriage scene she is all eyelid-fluttering coyness. But even here this Butterfly manages to convey a deep-seated pride in her ancestry and a burning sense of moral integrity. It is her inability to understand that this integrity is not shared by the crass Pinkerton (a suitably brash performance by the Mexican tenor Rafael Rojas, who helpfully has something of Clark Gable’s devil-may-care demeanour about him) that leads to her hopeless three-year vigil and suicide.

Duprels’ singing blazes with more and more passion as the evening progresses. It’s not an even-toned voice: there’s an awkward switch from conversational chest voice to full-cream upper register, and a quick little vibrato that won’t seduce all ears. But she gives the music everything she’s got, and rides the orchestra thrillingly at the climaxes.

Elsewhere there is an excellent Sharpless from Peter Savidge – deeply embarrassed by his countryman’s behaviour, yet powerless to do much more than wring his hands. It is a clever touch to have this “sympathetic” American wearing Japanese slippers, while Alasdair Elliot’s pimpish Goro (another figure that would fit well into Miss Saigon) sports a raffish Western suit. We are reminded that, as with all clashes of civilisations, there are heroes, villains, and all shades in between, on both sides.

Ann Taylor is a believable Suzuki, infused with the implacable sadness of one who knows instinctively that things will turn out badly. Jonathan May’s Bonze is unusual and impressive: a wild, roughhewn holy man hurling out unpalatable dogmas. And Wyn Davies conducts the show admirably. There’s lots of rubato that is well considered and impeccably executed, and some stirring, take-no-prisoners playing from the Opera North orchestra.

Box office: 0844 8482700. Tour details: www.operanorth.co.uk

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