BOSTON-A fragile and tragic classic opened the Boston Lyric Opera's season Friday, eliciting a much-deserved standing ovation from the crowd in the Wang Center's Shubert Theatre. Madama Butterfly's setting took the audience to turn-of-the-century Japan with singing so beautiful that the English-speaking attendees easily could have forgotten the opera was in Italian. Giacomo Puccini's epic story has long made this particular opera a favorite, and the Boston Lyric Opera's fine performance of the tale was a large part of what made this show such a success. Set largely in Nagasaki in the early 20th century, the opera follows Cio-Cio-San, a young geisha known as Madama Butterfly, who is taken as a wife by an American naval officer, Col. B.F. Pinkerton. After their wedding, a ceremony that Cio-Cio-San takes far more seriously than her husband, Pinkerton returns to America, with a vague promise to return.

Three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for him to come back to her and his son, whom she bore in his absence, not realizing that Pinkerton has taken an American wife back home. When his ship returns to Japan at last and the news of his new marriage is broken to Butterfly, her whole world is torn apart. The tragic action she feels she must undertake begins to become apparent.

The sets and costumes are essential to conveying the play's message. Even the flats were crafted not of wood, but of more appropriate Japanese curtains, including silk paper. Through fabric, color and detail, the production portrayed a striking divide between the conflicting Japanese and American cultures.

The story, sets and costumes made for a very good production, but star Kelly Kaduce (Butterfly) made it great. Trained in Boston and the recipient of many accolades for the title role last season in "Thais," her operatic skill was evident through her clear understanding of all aspects of her notes and the feelings she conveyed through them. Along with her beautiful voice, Kaduce's emotional expressions and gestures lent an eerie realism to the plot.

The sole disappointing performance was Mrs. Pinkerton (Erica Brookhyser), who only appears briefly on stage at the very end. Despite singing right on target, she seemed to lack the awkwardness one must feel when meeting a husband's former lover. In addition, there needed to be more than a tinge of regret present when she sang her apologies to a completely devastated Butterfly. These sensations could not be felt through Brookhyser's performance, which thus paled in comparison to the rest of the cast's.

Madama Butterfly provided a beautiful evening filled with love, passion and sorrow. Executed in a brilliantly constructed setting, the singing and acting whisked audience members into a world where they could experience sensations right along with the characters.