Franz von Suppe` is perhaps best known to recent generations of music lovers for his "Poet and Peasant" and "Light Cavalry" overtures. This month, however, in double-cast, English-language performances in Manhattan and the Bronx, the 34-year-old Bronx Opera Company is investigating his rarely heard comic operetta "Boccaccio," an unceasingly tuneful work, as expected, loosely based on the life of Italian Renaissance writer Giovanni Boccaccio ("The Decameron").

Taking the title role, usually assigned to a tenor--or soprano (Maria Jeritza, for one, with the Metropolitan Opera in 1931)--Kyle Pfortmiller displays a vibrant high baritone and a dashing presence in a rousing entrance solo about the capers that inspire his spicy stories. He blends voices with soprano Noelle Barbera, as Fiametta, in a pair of charming love duets, the second sung variously in Italian, English and German. Barbera introduces herself in a dulcet account of a lullaby recalled from childhood. Christopher Beaurline and Mary Petro assume these parts in the alternate cast. Joined by his disciples (Sean Attebury and Campbell Bridges or Adrian Gans, the former playing a prince incognito), Pfortmiller's Boccaccio offers
a tender serenade to Barbera, Joanna Hill, and Natalie Anne Levin (or Kathleen Myrick and Grace Valdes), who respond with a sweeping waltz trio. With marital intrigue brewing in their own backyards, the Disgruntled Husbands of Florence (Craig Tessler, Brad Kronen--or Peter Heiman and Robert Havens--and Sorab Wadia) are ready to burn Boccaccio's scandalous books and lynch their author. In a sparkling septet, our hero confronts these foes, while defended by their wives (Christina Martos--or Titilayo Adedokun--Hill
and Levin), and ultimately emerges triumphant and wins his true love. Conductor Michael Spierman, the company's artistic director, and Ben Spierman, the stage director, preside over the polished cast and sizable choral and instrumental ensembles. Isabel Rubio designed the period costumes and Troy Hourie the sun-drenched squares and other locales. John Barker penned the English translation of Richard Genee` and F. Zell's text.  The company will give Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" from May 10-18.