Oxford audiences can consider themselves lucky indeed that the New Theatre is a regular venue for the tours promoted by Ellen Kent and her Oxpera and Ballet International.

For more than a decade now, she has brought top-quality productions from the national companies of Ukraine and Moldova.

Her work as a musical ambassador has recently earned her medals from the governments of both countries; perhaps it is time she was honoured for her cultural contribution at home.

This week we have been given fine examples of the work of the Moldovans in two productions from their company based in the capital city of Chisinau. Seeing them in action has been an added pleasure for me since I became acquainted with many of the performers and officials on a visit to their homeland a few years ago.

A notable feature of the trip was a tour of the massive Cricova vineyard, which once supplied sparkling wine to a vast swathe of the former Soviet Union. Significant quantities of its current output were sloshed around on stage this week during Prince Orlovsky's booze-fuelled ball that is a centrepiece of Johann Strauss II's gloriously tuneful comic opera Die Fledermaus.

Zarui Vardanean, taking on the celebrated breeches role as the bored and blas prince, proves herself well able to keep up with the chaps in knocking back the hootch.

We lucky press folk didn't do too bad, either, in the intervals. This certainly helped to put us in the right frame of mind for this hugely entertaining romp in which there were stand-out performances from Irina Vinogradova and Ruslan Zinevych as the duplicitous Eisensteins, Maria Tonina as their pert maid Adele and Anatol Arcea as the scheming Dr Falke who devises a fitting revenge on them for an earlier slight.

The hilarious Act III drunk scene involving the jailer Frosch (a non-singing role) is brilliantly successful, thanks to the acting skills of Mihai Timofti and the new script (in English) by Ms Kent.

The company moved from laughter to tears with its production last night, and again tonight, of Puccini's operatic masterpiece Madama Butterfly, left.

Galina Bernaz reprised her triumphant role as Cio Cio San, the teenage geisha 'Butterfly', who marries the US naval officer Pinkerton (Ruslan Zinevych) in the foolish belief that he will stay loyal to her.

But there comes the heartbreaking moment when, after a three-year absence, he returns to Nagasaki with his new American wife (Tatiana Verlin) and Butterfly decides on the ultimate sacrifice to allow a new life for her toddler son, Sorrow.

He is being played this week by six-year-old Thomas Truscott, a member of the Oxford Stagecoach Theatre Arts School, who substituted at the last minute for another lad who had broken his arm.

The productions, both conducted by Nicolae Dohotaru, were a musical and visual feast.