Well, we won’t spoil the story, but thanks to the performance of the Merola program apprentices, the light comedy did fire, and on all cylinders. We found it gutsy for these aspiring opera singers to present the world premiere of a new opera, but it turns out that the work is not much of a challenge. It is an opera with training wheels, if we may say. Written to feature all its performers pretty much evenly, it goes down easily and painlessly, in a short two hours.

It is a streamlined version of La Puce à l’Oreille, a French turn-of-the-last-century comedy by Feydeau, with a few catchy tunes which would not be out of place on Broadway (“Everything is bigger in Texas” for one, which keeps going: “especially your aunt’s ass….ets”). The cheap bad jokes are actually faithful to the original, it’s French but sophisticated it ain’t. This version is definitely a notch up: the seedy love hotel which gives its name to the opera is actually called the Minet Galant in French, which has several meanings, one of them the Gallant Pussy…

Tenor Andrew Bidlack carrying Chekov's gun, photo by John Lee