That feeling when you get into a warm bath after a difficult day, and you know everything will be alright is the kind of sensation you get in the remote audience of Puccini’s timeless classic Madama Butterfly. It’s not just about music that you will recognise from countless contexts and a story line that follows a very well-trodden path, however. It’s also about knowing that one of the world’s most adored classics is in the hands of consummate professionals. You are safe here to cry your heart out. Don’t miss the short season of this beautiful work – it opens at Ster Kinekor Cinema Nouveau all over the country on Friday 5 July and features a single screening each day until 9 July.

Those eternal issues of a young man having a girl at every port and a young woman willing to give her life, her universe and everything to have that man by her side always, are cliches because of their truths. However, the work is a production with real values because of the extraordinary presence of Asmik Grigorian who brings the authenticity of Cio-Cio San’s sense of hope even in the face of the end of the world, to the fore. Naïve, maybe, but real certainly. Not to mention her magnificent voice. Grigorian sings from more than her musical faculties and embraces her role completely. She may be a performer in her 40s but on this stage, at this moment, she is 15-year-old Butterfly and utterly in love with Lieutenant BF Pinkerton (Jonathan Tetelman).

Tetelman plays a very gentle Pinkerton, who in his articulation of love for Cio-Cio San, foxes us all, but watch his words with care: the colonialist dismissal of this exotic whim of his, in marrying a young Japanese geisha on her own territory, threads through the work from the get-go.

It’s an interesting work that comprises many cameos and just a handful of main roles. And here, you will understand that line from Konstantin Stanislavski about there being no small parts (only small actors). Tony Stevenson, for instance, in the role of the matchmaker, Goro, shines deliciously with his complicated untrustworthiness, in the small moments of spotlight that he has. So does Jeongcheol Cha as Prince Yamadori, who is keen for Butterfly’s jilted hand, but that may have to do as much with his stage presence as his wonderful costume.

Suzuki, the maid to Butterfly is scripted to embrace the understated role of being the shoulder to cry on and the sounding board who listens, with compassion and sense. Elizabeth DeShong is everything this role demands. Not quite a cameo, she sits by the side of the spotlight, but brings an immense presence of stability to the tale.

The story is conveyed with almost monolithic clarity and the simplicity of the Japanese screens as central to the work’s set as well as a heavily raked stage, is absolutely astounding. As characters emerge onstage, the understanding of deep space is evoked and your goosebump reflexes are ignited. But this has to do with a correlation between a potent understanding of colour, fabric and flow on the part of the costume designer, the lighting designer and the production. Here we have costumes that sing with the choreography and tell tales of horror implied only by the libretti.

But then, there are the puppets, which take the limits of this work beyond anything you might have experienced. The puppetry is intense and every nuance of Butterfly’s little child is so empathetic and rich, you want to hug him. Many years ago, there was an initiative in Johannesburg which involved life sized elephant puppets and the heightened sense of unbridled love they evoked was so enormous that it caught you by the lungs and forbad you from breathing while these creatures graced your path of being in the world. You will experience this in Madama Butterfly.

If you’ve never watched a classical opera before, this is your moment. This work comes with an excessive supporting programme which is crass rather than strong, but you will be able to forgive that, because it also contains all the bells and whistles of a small story told enormously with a dramatic end, filled with broken hearts and tragedy, as opera should be.

• Madama Butterfly was composed by Giacomo Puccini to libretti by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa and premiered in 1904. Directed for the Metropolitan Opera in New York by Gary Halvorson, it features design by Anthony Minghella (production); Michael Levine (set); Han Feng (costumes); Carolyn Choa (choreography); Peter Mumford (lighting); and Blind Summit Theatre (puppetry). Conducted by Xian Zhang, it is performed by a cast headlined by Elizabeth DeShong, Asmik Grigorian, Lucas Meachem, Tony Stevenson and Jonathan Tetelman and is being screened by MetOpera live at selected Art Nouveau movie theatres in South Africa, between Friday 5 July and Tuesday 9 July 2024.