In Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre's production of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte "Le Nozze di Figaro" (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786), after Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais' then recent, revolutionary play "Le Mariage de Figaro," heard on April 30, the second of three performances, Artistic and Stage Director Dona D. Vaughn made plain the anger smoldering beneath the buffo action, as conductor Giovanni Reggioli, guiding, with Vaughn, a fresh, youthful cast, made clear the opera seria elements embedded in the sparkling score, all pointing up that but a fine line separates the nominally comic "Figaro" from the tragic "Don Giovanni," both of them dramme giocosi, or serio-comic operas.

When Robert E. Mellon, a baritone with a promising future, as Figaro-a barber, remember-treated Count Almaviva's powered wig roughly, on its stand, during "Se vuol ballare," and pushed Cherubino, about to join the Count's regiment, around, during "Non più andrai," his hostility, we knew, was meant for the employer whom he, as a servant, could not, in years prior to the world-changing French Revolution, openly defy.

When the Count, André Chiang, another outstanding baritone, and Countess, Anna Viemeister, a lyric soprano destined, perhaps, for heftier assignments, got the monumental second act finale's succession of duet, trio, quartet, quintet and septet off to a fiery start, their kinship with characters in serious opera, Don Giovanni and Donna Anna, say, was evident. For both entrances in Act Two, Chiang's bellicose Count appeared armed, ready to do battle with the Countess and her allies, in his wife's own bedroom. When Viemeister's Countess was discovered, lying forlornly on her bed, at the start of the act, she made us aware, before singing a single plaintive note of "Porgi amor," that she was one unhappy lady. As Susanna, Figaro's bride, gleaming-voiced soprano Lindsay Russell, too, showed herself capable of the highest of dudgeons, when she saw Figaro with his head in the lap of Abigail Brown, as Marcellina, his long lost and newly found mother, and thought the worst.

The singers, including mezzo-soprano Samantha Korbey, as Cherubino, and bass-baritone Raed Saade, as Doctor Bartolo, added welcome embellishments to music we were once taught should be sung only exactly as written, a bad old tradition happily fallen into disuse. Charlie Blueweiss, as a weasel of a music master, Don Basilio, though shorn, like Brown, of a fourth act aria, and Dorian Balis, Marcellina's stammering lawyer, Don Curzio, both displayed true Mozartian tenors, rather than crabbed, stereotypical comprimario voices, and cut vivid figures, as did baritone Houston Vinson as the gardener, Antonio. Joo Young Bang, disclosing a distinctive soprano leggiero in Barbarina's cavatina, "L'ho perduta, me meschina!" sounded quite prepared to move into big cousin Susanna's role.

Reggioli paced the bustling overture, redolent of plotting and intrigue, at breakneck speed, but proved sympathetic and supportive to the singers. Erhard Rom (sets), James Crochet (costumes), Jane Cox (lighting), and Anne Ford-Coates (wigs) contributed designs. June Marano-Murray was harpsichordist for the recitatives, and Jorge Parodi was chorus master.

The remaining "Figaro," on May 2 at 2:30 p.m., features Mellon as Figaro with a different slate of colleagues, who also sang their roles on April 28. Tickets are $20, or $12 for seniors and students. Visit www.msmnyc.edu or telephone 917/493-4428 for further information. Manhattan School of Music is located at 122nd Street and Broadway/120 Claremont Avenue.