Last week, I recommended the final production of Washington National Opera's season to you. Monday night, DCist was in the audience for the second performance of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, and I can now say confidently that this production is a "smashing success" (as Tim Page described it for the Post). While not perfect as I heard it, the voices and musical performance are all of high quality and the wacky story is likely to please even the opera neophyte. I have heard people sometimes explain their reluctance to attend an opera because they "do not want to think too much." If that is your concern, trust me: with this opera, no cogitation is required.

Among friends who are longtime WNO subscribers, however, I have heard some grumbling about the choice of this opera with its vacuous libretto -- far from a great work, even among dippy comic operas -- that it comes too quickly after the last time WNO did this opera, in exactly the same production although with a different cast, in 1998 (and a couple times, in rapid succession, in the 1980s before that). As a result, quite a few opera regulars opted out of seeing this production. This will hopefully be good for all of you who want to take advantage of the reduced-price tickets available to members of Generation O (all students and young professionals, ages 18 to 35, are eligible), if more such offers are made available. On Monday night, there were numerous empty seats toward the back of the orchestra level.

The star of this show is clearly rising tenor Juan Diego Flórez as Lindoro, the Italian prisoner of the Algerian Bey Mustafà. Lindoro has the only truly lyrical, beautiful moment in this silly opera -- the Act I cavatina "Languir per una bella" -- and Flórez's voice had all the qualities of strength, purity of tone, and agility in the difficult fioriture that one could hope for it. He is also a handsome young singer, with charismatic stage presence and good comic timing. With athletic poise he leapt around the stage during his solo moments, reminding us that his mother was a folk dancer in Peru. His new and pretty recording of Latin-American popular songs will hopefully convince many listeners to give opera a try. What a voice!

Flórez was paired with Russian mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina as Isabella (who comes to Algeria looking for her beloved Lindoro), returning to the Kennedy Center Opera House after her fine performance as Dalila in Samson et Dalila last season. Her voice seems to deepen and darken every time I hear her, meaning for this performance that her high notes were sometimes slightly strained, but she has gorgeous resonance in the middle and lower range. Her accuracy in the staccato melody of "Oh! Che muso, che figura!" (when she first meets Mustafà) was remarkable to hear. She was a clever Isabella, too, schooling the Bey in how Italian women are not to be toyed with.

Her compatriot Lyubov Petrova has a powerful but sharp, precise tone, piercing through on high notes at funny moments in Rossini's score as the Bey's foresaken wife, Elvira. In the ingenious ensemble that ends the first act, Borodina hilariously cupped her hand over Petrova's mouth at the end of one of those gorgeous high notes, as if jealous because of her own slightly diminished high range. Ildar Abdrazakov was all comic bluster as the Bey, Mustafà -- for example, in his Act II rage aria, "Andate alla malora" -- complete with grotesque hair attached to his arms and chest, which at one point caused Borodina to pretend to gag. (Mustafà's ugliness is a constant joke in the libretto, a gag that Abdrazakov and Borodina, who are married in real life, seemed to relish.) Bruno de Simone was an absurdly pompous Taddeo, and Leslie Mutchler (one of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists I have admired before) was perhaps a little overpowered among this cast but generally sang well. Valeriano Lanchas sang with confidence and was an effective caricature as the Bey's henchman, Haly.

The only musical piece not entirely fitting into this puzzle was the occasional lack of rhythmic ensemble. Blame for this discombobulation must be laid upon the shoulders of conductor Riccardo Frizza, who did his best to keep the singers aligned with his orchestra, not all of whom seemed to be watching him as closely as they should. After a finely played overture -- one of the more attractive pieces Rossini penned, especially the pizzicato guitar-like opening, and here with good wind solos and jangling janissary percussion -- there were a few too many disagreements. One of the causes may be that some of the allegros were just a little too vivace, meaning that much of the patter sections went by too quickly for the singers to make much sound other than the click of consonants. Whether this was Frizza's choice to opt for precipitous tempi or his inability to control his forces from rushing is not clear. The sets and production ideas are the same as they were all these years since it was created, pleasant enough -- an easily pleased audience applauded the opening set on Monday night. However, I do have to question why on earth the director, David Kneuss, decided to have a naked dancer supernumerary run from her hidden place in Mustafà's bath -- where she was presumably fellating him -- in Act I. It got a laugh, yes, but is there any dramatic reason to add this to the libretto? Let it not be said that opera does not sometimes have gratuitous nudity! I enjoyed it.

Remaining performances (none sold out yet) are scheduled for May 18, 21, 24, 26, and 30, and June 3. There are apparently still a few Generation O tickets ($25 and $35, enter promotion code 4924 when you order) available for tomorrow night's performance (May 18, 7:30 p.m.), and more will probably be offered for later performances. I highly recommend attending this opera no later than the May 26 performance: Robert McPherson will be replacing Juan Diego Flórez for the May 30 and June 3 performances. This is nothing against McPherson, but you will not want to miss the chance to hear Flórez.