Neil Fisher [Times Online, 6 February 2007]

How much you get out of Welsh National Opera’s indestructible production of Madama Butterfly slightly depends on your political inclinations. Do you burn with shame for Pinkerton’s colonialist treatment of his innocent victim as much as you feel for her plight? Then Joachim Herz’s vitriolic 1978 production is definitely for you. The sets might be that timeless Seventies beige, but the moral battle here is definitely black and white.