(Credit: George Lucozzi / ASA Photographic)

Some people go back to their high school to relive glory days. I went back to watch a magical island queen get dumped. Tomato, tomahto.

MassOpera’s production of Handel’s “Alcina,” which took place at Arlington High School, added a charmingly suburban twist to the company’s track record of inventive venues. The company did little to alter the high school appearance, so attending felt ultra-authentic. We were greeted with signs directing visitors to sign-in at the school office, and posters cheering on the Arlington High “Spy Ponders.” To be honest, walking into the theater gave me flashbacks to my own high school productions. But a mere moment or two among the evening’s enthusiastic audience and a sharp reminder to myself to take the elitist chip off my shoulder changed my mind. Overall, MassOpera’s production of “Alcina:” swung big, occasionally missed, and still landed somewhere wonderfully earnest and enchanting.

Part of what made the evening feel so earnest was the debut of MassOpera’s new Community and Youth Ensemble (CYE), a program designed to integrate community performers into professional productions.  Featuring 17 singers from high schoolers to senior citizens, the presence of the group in “Alcina’s” two large chorus scenes was an utter delight. Families beamed as loved ones took the stage and there was more than a fair share of moms snapping blurry iPhone photos during a chorus number.  Holding the opera in the high school felt like less of a cost-saving measure (which it may have been), and more like an intentional grounding in MassOpera’s new community initiative. Even though I didn’t know a single chorus member, the audience’s enthusiasm was infectious and I found myself rooting for each one of them.

It’s a clever model for building both opera’s future and its audience at the same time, inviting the community not just to witness the production, but to see themselves in it. Which is why it was a bit disappointing that the overture offered no visual or written introduction to Alcina’s world. “Alcina” is confusing even on a good day, and a bit of staging magic help might’ve grounded new opera viewers who attended that evening to see their loved one’s sing in the CYE. This, combined with the only plot summary of the opera accessible via QR code rather than printed in the program, felt a bit out of character with MassOpera’s community spirit. If we’re going to welcome new audiences to the opera house (or High School, as it were) we also bear a responsibility to give them a warm introduction. This opening felt more like being tossed into a magical storm with no compass.

Luckily, when Naré Kim’s Morgana pirouetted onstage in a swirl of pink lamé to sing her first aria, the audience was captivated. Her voice may lean heavier than your average soubrette, but her acting was a joy. Whether she was twirling girlishly or (as she did at several points in the evening) laying down and rolling around on stage in a fit of giddiness, Kim knew how to sell comedy. And when she was accidentally killed by Ruggiero’s dagger at the end of Act three, the entire audience audibly gasped. One man behind me even let out a scandalized “whoops,” which ought to be included in every future recording of the opera.

The set was minimalist: a surrealist green arch with dripping Schiaparelli-esque rhinestone eyes and swaths of dusty orange silk. The silk came crashing down at the climax of Act I when Ruggiero’s enchantment was dispelled by Melisso’s magic ring. For an otherwise bare set, the silks were an effective touch.

As for Alcina herself, played by Kayla Kovacs, her voice was smooth, even regal, but never quite reached the tempestuous dynamic heights you’d expect from an unhinged sorceress. Still, Kovacs’s stage presence was magnetic. She deployed her consonants like daggers and carried herself with the sort of composure that made you believe she’d turned a whole army into animals before breakfast.

Ruggiero, though, was the breakout star. From the moment Chihiro Asano strutted onstage, I scribbled “star energy” in my notes. Her coloratura was lethal: each run hit like a precisely aimed arrow. Her performance was an intoxicating mix of athleticism, vocal prowess, and emotional depth. Asano’s “Sta’ Nell Irkana” raked in the loudest applause of the evening. Her performance included some of the most sensitive dynamics of the night and the most intriguing vocal fireworks, especially considering that the staging had her running for a solid third of the aria. When she finished the marathon sing, I heard several audience members take large, audible breath, the kind you might take after watching a snowboarder land a perfect 360 or a watching an acrobat land a backflip. Her duet scenes with Bradamante, played with cool contralto control by Becca Allen, crackled with chemistry. Every glance, every shared breath felt weighted with history and heat.

Speaking of heat, let’s talk about queerness, or rather, the production’s cautious flirtation with it. For a show built on gender-bending, mistaken identities, and literal enchantments, the staging could have afforded to make the queer undertones of the opera more explicit. There was never more than a hug between any of the main couples, whether Ruggiero and Alcina, Ruggiero and Bradamante, Ricciardo and Morgana or even the straight couple, Morgana and Oronte. A few kisses wouldn’t hurt anyone, and they’d only make the love triangle spicier.

That said, the production consciously represented gender fluidity in the costuming: keeping Ruggiero’s hair long, and never having Bradamante don a fake beard or somesuch nonsense you might see in another production. Most impactfully, the supertitles (offered in English and Chinese) used they/them pronouns or the equivalent  for Ruggiero and Ricciardo in both languages, which was a lovely gesture. While I wouldn’t call the production a queer revolution, I found their take on gender-bending and queerness to be earnest and well-intended, which is more than I can say for many other opera companies.

Not everything hit the mark so squarely. Oronte’s (David Rivera Bozón) big Act one aria, “Semplicetto,” should’ve been a comedic showstopper but fell flat both emotionally and, unfortunately, tonally. Some staging choices left singers facing away from the audience at crucial moments, robbing us of facial expressions and vocal clarity.

But even amid these small hiccups, moments of brilliance shone through. Cailin Smith’s Oberto, for instance, was a scene-stealer. Her coloratura was clean, her characterization sharp, and she never once dropped focus, even while silently reacting to a lengthy Alcina aria from a corner of the stage.

And then there was the Bradamante, Ruggiero, Alcina trio in Act two, voices blending like a sorcerous smoothie. It was easily one of the musical highlights of the evening.

Alexandra Brassard, Jing Cai, Junpei Zhou, and Quang Ha, members of the newly minted CYE, brought smiles to the room when they uttered their cheerful callouts as stones and animals and plants in the final chorus.

Ultimately, I left the evening charmed. Sure, the violins were a little dodgy, and I found myself longing for something more boldly queer. But I also saw an opera that felt alive: both scrappy and fiercely local. I may not have scored a touchdown under the Friday night lights, but watching a sorceress get dramatically dumped on a stage that usually houses school assemblies? That’s a high school memory I’ll actually treasure.