Sharin Apostolou & Alex Boyer as Zemire & Azor. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

For its spring production, the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater unearthed a bona fide rarity, Zemire und Azor, an early romantic (1819) German version of Mme Leprince de Beaumont’s story La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast ), with music by Louis Spohr (1784-1859) and libretto by Johann Jakob Ihlée, after André-Modeste Grétry and Jean-François Marmontel’s comédie-ballet Zémire et Azor.

The first musical numbers immediately establish Zemire und Azor’s descent from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven’s serious singspiels and kinship with those of Carl Maria von Weber. Hero and heroine undergo trials, like Die Zauberflöte’s Tamino and Pamina, and have comic foils, like Papageno and Die Entführung aus dem Serail ’s Pedrillo and Blonde. This cannot be easy music to sing—the excellent young singers, generally faring quite well, were occasionally tripped up by the line’s challenging tessitura or coloratura. The singing here was in German and the spoken dialogue delivered in English, always a disconcerting practice. I would urge use of one language or the other throughout.

In Zemire und Azor, Sander, accompanied by his dippy servant, Ali, is shipwrecked near Prince Azor’s palace and picks a rose from his garden, engendering the ire of the Prince. Azor, rendered hideous by a fairy’s enchantment, demands a sacrifice—Sander’s life or one of his three daughters. The youngest, Zemire, puts herself in her father’s place and comes to love her unsightly swain, asking only to visit her family to reassure them, a wish reluctantly granted. She then overcomes all obstacles to be reunited with her Prince, bringing the spell to an end and causing Azor’s looks to return to normal.

Soprano Sharin Apostolou and tenor Alex Boyer, of the first night’s cast, acquitted themselves with Mozartian grace and elegance in the protagonists’ two virtuoso arias apiece. In his bravura showpieces, Boyer’s Azor anticipated salvation and lamented the possible loss of his love. Singing with great delicacy, Apostolou saluted the fateful flower, given to her by her father, in the seemingly simple, beautiful legato “Rose wie bist du reizend und mild,” known, in English, as “Rose softly blooming” and recorded, in Italian, as “Candida rosa,” by Joan Sutherland when on the threshold of her international career. Apostolou later rose to most demands of her heroic aria, requiring a nascent Fidelio Leonore or Oberon Rezia and expressing her love for Azor and determination to return to him. In their duet, Apostolou evinced shock when she first encountered Boyer, but he addressed her tenderly and they were soon in lyric and coloratura harmony.

Usually cast in buffo roles here, bass Charles Temkey had a more serious assignment in Sander and introduced himself in a dramatic solo with coloratura. Soprano Yoosun Park and mezzo-soprano Renee Lenore Tatum, as his spoiled and selfish daughters Lisbe and Fatme, whom one could think of as Così Fan Tutte ’s Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s evil twins, blended voices in a florid comic duet after seizing Zemire’s magic ring, her gift from Azor. Tenor Jon-Michael Ball, as Ali, a sort of Papageno or Pedrillo figure, sang a paean to food and drink, magically provided, and recounted a dream in an aria with mandolin-like accompaniment, akin to one of Pedrillo’s.

Completing the cast was Kristin Knutson, in the spoken part of the fairy who disfigured Azor and, as a dea ex machina, reunited Zemire and Azor and removed the spell she had cast on the Prince. The chorus assailed Sander with a sinister-sounding fugue after he picked the rose and joined the principals for a lofty finale, on the order of those of Zauberflöte and Fidelio, hailing the power of love.

Shiree Kidron, Matthew Peña, Robert Stafford, Marissa Famiglietti, Rachel Calloway and Paul Shikany are the singers in the last two performances.

Conductor Christopher Larkin and director Albert Sherman presided over this successful venture to breathe fresh life into Zemire und Azor . Peter Harrison designed and Traci Klainer lit the enchanting production, in which, to the characters’ amazement, feasts, treasure, and magic conveyances slid on and off and gates and flower-covered trees ascended and descended. Daniel James Cole devised the fairy tale costumes.

Zemire und Azor finale. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Manhattan School of Music 120 Claremont Avenue (at 122^nd Street)

April 11, 13 & 15 at 8 p.m.

Tickets $20 & 15; $10 & 7.50 for students & seniors