Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Philippe Boesmans’s women lead perilous lives. The heroine of “Julie,” his penultimate opera, seduces her valet and then, disgusted by her faux pas, cuts her own throat. The composer’s new stage work, “Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy,” also ends badly: To the delight of the royal court, the prince’s wife chokes to death on a fishbone.

The world premiere at the Paris Opera on Jan. 24 was a triumph. Unlike most contemporary works, “Yvonne” may have enough popular appeal to be taken up by other theaters and, perhaps, enter the repertory.

“Yvonne” is based on Polish author Witold Gombrowicz’s surrealist play, published in 1935 to scant attention.

Its career began only after World War II when directors, including Ingmar Bergman and Jan Kott, who staged it in 1969 at Stony Brook University in New York, were intrigued by the fairy tale in reverse: The ugly duckling meets her prince, yet instead of happily living ever after, soon gets on his nerves, unsettles the court and therefore must die.

The directors kept trying to find the key to the cryptic plot, much to the dismay of the author, who insisted that it didn’t mean anything.

One thing for sure is that Gombrowicz was influenced by Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi,” the 1896 play about a farcical king and his reign of terror -- a forerunner of what would later be known as “Theater of the Absurd.”

Mad Courtiers

Luc Bondy, the director of the Paris production, who also wrote the libretto along with Marie-Louise Bischofberger, stresses the grotesque side of the story. In Richard Peduzzi’s elegant, vaguely Art Deco set, the courtiers are lavishly costumed, yet move around like inmates of a madhouse.

Boesmans, who was born in 1936 in Tongeren, Belgium, and lives in Brussels, started out as a disciple of Pierre Boulez and his esoteric serialism -- a wrong track, he says today.

He returned to tonality and, although still a modernist, doesn’t disdain lapsing into late Romanticism: At times, “Yvonne” reminds you of the music of Franz Schreker or Alexander von Zemlinsky. On Boesmans’s eclectic palette, there’s even room for Baroque dances and fake gypsy fiddles.

Unlike the late Romantics, Boesmans doesn’t use a full symphony orchestra. The Klangforum Wien in the pit is a band of 33, which means that you are able to understand every word.

Most of the lines are delivered in conversational style. The only aria in the traditional sense is sung by the queen, the prince’s mother, who secretly writes poems. Mireille Delunsch is wonderful in that kooky part.

Sweet Prince

Yann Beuron is a sweet-toned prince, Victor von Halem a cavernous chamberlain, Paul Gay a lightweight king. Sylvain Cambreling, the conductor, who so often sounds cold and uninvolved in the classical repertory, is in his element here.

Yvonne, the eye of storm, is not a singing and hardly a speaking part: She croaks only three or four sentences. The German actress Dorte Lyssewski is fabulous. She looks like a puppet that has lost its strings, grotesque and yet strangely moving. At the premiere, she received the loudest applause.

“Yvonne, Princesse de Bourgogne” runs through Feb. 8. For more information, go to http://www.operadeparis.fr or call +33- 1-7229-3535.

Rating: ***

High-Pitched Fun

An opera with a silent heroine is less unusual than you may think. Most Belgians have heard -- although the opera is rarely performed -- of Daniel Auber’s “La Muette de Portici” (The Mute Girl of Portici) about the Neapolitan uprising against Spanish rule. In 1830, when played in Brussels, it sparked off the revolt that led to Belgium’s independence.

After a long absence, the Opera Comique in Paris has revived “Fra Diavolo,” another opera by Auber and a repertory staple in the 19th century.

One of the reasons for its neglect is the high tessitura of the two main parts -- Fra Diavolo, the gentleman robber, and Zerlina, the daughter of the innkeeper, whose English guests have whetted the robber’s appetite. Kenneth Tarver and Sumi Jo, though hardly the owners of the richest voices in the world, manage their fiorituras and coloraturas well.

The rest of the cast, except the hilarious English lord (Marc Molomot), is so-so, the direction (Jerome Deschamps) routine, and Jeremie Rhorer’s Cercle de l’Harmonie, a period- instrument ensemble, sounds at times like a military band.

Never mind. The exhumation of this buried treasure merits attention. If you’re a Rossini fan, you’ll love Auber.

“Fra Diavolo” plays through Feb. 4. For details, see http://www.opera-comique.com or call +33-1-4244-4540.

Rating: **

(Jorg von Uthmann is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Jorg von Uthmann in Paris at uthmann@wanadoo.fr.

Last Updated: January 26, 2009 19:00 EST