After the success of the second part of its American Ring Cycle, with all performances long since sold out, Washington National Opera opened its second spring production on Saturday evening, Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment. There is no reason to revive this rather silly comic opera, last mounted by WNO in 1993, unless you have a truly remarkable cast and perhaps a new and interesting production. That seemed to be the case with this beautiful if somewhat nonsensical staging, created by Emilio Sagi for the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, which updates the action of the libretto to the end of World War II. The advertisement pictures, showing a man and woman in Napoleonic soldier uniforms, are not to be trusted. A DVD of the revival at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, released this past fall, records for posterity the astounding performance by tenor Juan Diego Flórez, who has been singing the role of Tonio to wild acclaim all around Europe.

The WNO revival reunites some of the elements of that successful production in Genoa, including the director and conductor Riccardo Frizza, but it lacks the most important one, the singers with star power. Instead of Flórez (who is singing the role at the Vienna Staatsoper this month) we had Spanish tenor José Bros, whose voice is forward-placed and potent enough that he generally overwhelmed his Marie with sound. Bros more or less nailed eight of the nine high C's in the infamous Act I aria, Ah! mes amis, which is no small feat, and managed a high D at the end of his Act II romance. A comparison to Flórez's ease with the same high notes (even when an encore of the Ah! mes amis was demanded) provides some context, however, with the unfortunate result that Bros's achievement is diminished.

Likewise, instead of Patrizia Ciofi as Marie, we were to have heard, for the first time in Washington, Italian soprano Stefania Bonfadelli, who was indisposed. JiYoung Lee, a former Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist at WNO, stepped in for opening night, and she is to be commended for covering the role that she was originally to sing for only a single performance (April 12). Lee's voice is a little too light at this point in her vocal development for Marie, although her high pianissimo is lovely. She has all of the high notes up to E-flat but without the power to soar up to them with the character's impetuous flair. Victoria Livengood and Simone Alberghini gave fine supporting performances as La Marquise de Berkenfield and Sulpice Pingot, respectively. Frizza conducted the opera orchestra in a nimble reading of the overture and cleverly negotiated a few misalignments of ensemble. (The poor man must know the opera far more intimately than any sane person deserves.) The English horn solo in Il faut partir, Marie's gorgeous aria near the end of Act I, was appropriately forlorn.

JiYoung Lee in La Fille du Régiment, Washington National Opera, 2007, photo by Karin Cooper

The story is improbable as only 19th-century opera libretti can be. Marie is the long-lost child of a Swiss noblewoman, found and raised by the 21st regiment of the Napoleonic Army, then wreaking havoc in countries around Europe. By transferring the action to France at the end of World War II, Sagi's staging makes the regiment from the U.S. Army, then liberating France. This makes a muddle of the already flimsy story: why are the French afraid of the U.S. Army, who have come to liberate their country? When Tonio is accepted by the regiment, they offer to make a toast to his country (supposed to be Switzerland, now switched to France), but he declines and insists that they toast to the honor of ... France (the home country of the Napoleonic Army). At that point, Marie and her soldier friends should have thought that Tonio was a little simple.

The production is further camped up by a host of supernumerary characters, including the Marquise's domestic staff who drink and scamper around shamelessly. The guest list for the party, at which Marie is supposed to sign the contract for her arranged wedding to a nobleman, is altered to include society figures such as the Baron of Anacostia, the Count of Foggy Bottom, the Lord of Alexandria, and so on. (The supertitles disappeared as the names were read in French, meaning that most of the audience did not get the joke.) At the announcement of "Les Demoiselles de Dupont Circle," three men in drag (I think) descended the stairs and later proceeded to try to cruise soldiers from the regiment. Don't ask, don't tell.

Performances will continue on various dates from this evening through April 15, and tickets remain for all of them. You will be better off trying to get a last-minute ticket to the Wagner.