For the climax of their short winter season at City Center, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) romped through a new, Edward Gorey-inspired production of the madcap and macabre G & S operetta rarity "Ruddigore" (1887), guided by Artistic Director, conductor, and co-director Albert Bergeret. The work concerns "The Witch's Curse," of the subtitle, upon successive generations of the "Bad Baronets" Murgatroyd, of Ruddigore Castle, each heir to the title condemned to commit a crime a day or perish. The Gorey influence was most clearly evident in the louche faces in the Ruddigore ancestral portrait gallery, in Act Two, in which the Baronets step from their picture frames, in an eerie "Der Freischütz"-esque chorus, "When the Night Wind Howls," in order to enforce the conditions of the curse. In a pointed topical updating, Richard Holmes, as a dastardly Sir Despard Murgatroyd, temporary Ruddigore heir, threatened to consign the whole lot of painted ancestors "to the George W. Bush Archives" where "nobody shall ever look upon their faces again!"

The ensembles made for particularly striking highlights. The first act finale included a delicate and precise a cappella madrigal quintet and chorus, "When the buds are blossoming"-for Rose Maybud (Sarah Caldwell Smith), excruciatingly correct intended of, variously, Robin Oakapple, Richard Dauntless, and Sir Despard; Dame Hannah (Erika Person), Rose's blameless aunt; Robin (David Macaluso), the disguised Sir Ruthven (pronounced Rivven) Murgatroyd; Richard (Dan Greenwood), Robin's covertly villainous sailor foster brother; and Adam Goodheart (Tim Bouton), Robin's "faithful valley-de-sham" (valet de chambre)-followed by a courtly dance, devised by choreographer and co-director David Auxier. No G & S endeavor would be complete without its breathless patter numbers and these included "You Understand," a gleeful collaboration between scoundrels Despard and Richard, and the eleven o'clock number, the hit tune, "My Eyes Are Fully Open," and its deliberately increasingly unintelligible encores, for Robin/Ruthven, Despard, and Mad Margaret (Cáitlín Burke).

Buffo Macaluso, as the hapless true heir to the baronetcy, distinguished himself with his rapid-fire "My Boy, You May Take It From Me" and "Away, Remorse!" and briefly affected a Bela Lugosi accent in his vain effort to live up to the role of Bad Baronet. Soprano Smith sweetly conveyed Rose's earnest creed, dictated by a book of etiquette, her stern manifesto, in "If Somebody There Chanced to Be." Aptly skulking onto the stage in the manner of a stereotypical melodrama heavy, baritone Holmes introduced himself and his plight in a bel canto "Oh, Why Am I Moody and Sad?" Mezzo-soprano Burke, as Mad Margaret, established herself as an unbridled Ophelia-and-Lucia, rolled into one, in a riveting entrance mad scene, "Cheerily carols the lark ... To a garden full of posies." Holmes' Despard and Burke's Margaret cleaned up their act to become as virtuous as Rose, but for some lapses from the latter, and told the tale of their reformation in a soberly measured "I Once Was a Very Abandoned Person." Handsome lyric tenor Greenwood's Richard's jolly entrance chantey, "From the Briny Sea," and subsequent hornpipe, belied the mischief he would make in wooing his foster brother's love and revealing the secret of Robin/Ruthven's identity. Person set the tone for the evening with Dame Hannah's narrative about the legend of "Sir Rupert Murgatroyd," the first Baronet, cursed by the witch he burned, and had a tender reunion with David Wannen as her erstwhile love, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, who lived anew, in "There Grew a Little Flower." Kudos go to the choruses of professional bridesmaids, villagers, gentry, and ancestors.

"Ruddigore" opened on January 14 and additional performances take place on the 16th at 8 p.m. and 17th at 3 p.m. For remaining tickets, priced from $96 to 40, go to the City Center box office on 55th Street between the Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue, telephone CityTix at 212/581-1212, or log on to www.citycenter.org. Children 12 and under are admitted for half-price, when accompanied by an adult, and 10 percent senior discounts are available.