No vacation plans? Globe-trot with Opera New Jersey

Exotic settings have been the norm for opera since the genre began. Opera New Jersey's season, which begins Friday, takes this tradition to a head-spinning extreme, with three productions that variously feature Japanese villagers singing in English, a German opera populated with Spaniards and Turks and an Italian take on feuding Scottish nobles.

"It gives you the flexibility to make everything current," he says. "It's not just something that was funny years ago."

Scully is joined by veteran Savoyard Curt Olds, who plays the executioner Koko. Olds has made Koko into his signature role.

Director Michael Scarola preserves the manners and traditions of Japan as Gilbert, librettist for composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, presented them. "There's a lot of respect given to Gilbert and Sullivan whenever we make an adaptation or change," Olds says.

Olds also points to the relevance of "The Mikado," which is frequently revived but sometimes treated as lighter and less substantial than other popular operas. "It's still as fresh as the day it was written," he says.

Mozart's "Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail," translated as "Abduction from the Seraglio," was written more than 100 years before "The Mikado" and is the oldest work presented this summer, but the performances will feature something new. The dialogue between arias, usually in German and originally written by librettist Christoph Friedrich Bretzner, has been translated into English by journalist and critic Matthew Gurewitsch.

Countering these two comedic works is Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," a violent and tumultuous tragedy set in Scotland. The opera, familiar to local audiences from the Academy of Vocal Arts' performances earlier this year in Philadelphia and Camden, stages the feud between the Ravenswood and Ashton clans.

Lisette Oropesa plays the title character in John Hoomes' dark-themed production, and her research has led her to Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor," on which the opera is based, and to histories of Scotland during the 17th century to learn about the real woman on whom the character is based.

In Oropesa's words, Lucia is "an escape artist." "She's taken things and not dealt with them," she says. "She takes comfort in spirits and fantasies and stores things inside, and it blows up in her face."

The blowing-up takes the form of a brutal murder, committed off-stage, and a famous "mad scene" in which she raves about her true love Edgardo, a member of her family's rival clan, and her now-dead husband. It's the heart of all "Lucia" performances, but "it's what leads up to it that makes the mad scene work," Oropesa says.

In a new partnership, the Newark-based New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will provide pit musicians for the performances. Singers also will partner with Symphony musicians for showcase concerts and a read-through of composer Michael Ching's modern version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."