When Miss Saigon opens at the Sydney Opera House on Friday, its composer, Claude-Michel Schönberg, knows that controversy will follow just as sure as a helicopter will hover over the stage in act two.

“We wrote it as a love story, based on Madama Butterfly, about a big misunderstanding between a Western boy and a Vietnamese girl,” the Frenchman tells The Australian Financial Review. Featuring lyrics by long-time collaborator Alain Boubil, 38 million people in 32 countries have seen the musical since its West End debut in 1989.