Krysty Swann & company in Riders to the Sea. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

The sea makes a ferocious, unrelenting neighbor, as Hurricane Katrina recently reminded us, in real life and, in art, as operas Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes (1945) and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ less well-known, earlier Riders to the Sea (1937), after John Millington Synge’s play, demonstrate. In the latter, a short work that begins a British 20^th century operatic double bill, being given three hearings by Manhattan School of Music (MSM) Opera Theater this month (December 7, 9 and 11), stormy seas and wild winds resound throughout a mournful, fairly restrained and, at first, mostly conversational score. A first outburst, in this opus set on Arran Island, off Ireland’s west coast, comes when Nora (soprano Sharin Apostolou) confirms that some clothes that have been found belonged to her recently drowned brother, Michael.

The opera belongs, however, to their mother, Maurya, portrayed with distinction by mezzo-soprano Krysty Swann, a pupil of former Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn. To Maurya’s keening; enumeration of her losses—her six sons, her husband and “his own father again”— to the sea; prayer; and, as the body of her just drowned son, Bartley (baritone Grant Clarke), is brought in, brave, almost peaceful resolve that, with nearly everything taken from her, the sea can harm her no further, Swann brings dignified bearing and dark, lush tone, smooth from top to bottom of her instrument, surely evidence of Dunn’s good influence.

Rhoda Levine’s unfussy staging suits this grim, understated work, over which David Gilbert presides, from the pit, with authority. Grays and black aptly predominate in Marion Williams’ costumes and Arthur R. Rotch’s setting, representing a rough-hewn wooden dwelling on the rocks.

Lennox Berkeley’s bouncy A Dinner Engagement (1954), set in the down-at-heel Earl and Countess of Dunmow’s bright and cheerful, spacious kitchen in London, follows and, ingratiatingly sung by a lyrical septet of singers, provides a charming contrast, staged by Levine with comic flair. Looking frightfully domestic in his apron and frilly cap, the Earl (baritone Gideon Dabi) is starting to cook in preparation for a visit from the Grand Duchess of Monteblanco (mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway) and her son, Prince Philippe (particularly promising tenor Alexander Boyer). His quaint costume in no way deters him from bullying a delivery boy (tenor Keith Townsend), who demands to be paid in cash for the produce. In palmier days, the Earl served as Envoy Extraordinary to the Grand Duchy and now hopes that his headstrong, earthy daughter, Susan (soprano Marissa Famiglietti), will hit it off with the prince and prove the key to repairing the Dunmow family’s fortunes. The Earl, the Countess (soprano JennyRebecca Walker), and Mrs. Kneebone (mezzo-soprano Sarah Williams), whom they’ve hired, harmonize on a sweet Monteblancan shepherd’s song, “Mon aimée attend la lune,” and merrily chop food in time to the music as they make Tomates Monteblanco, the Duchy’s national dish.

But what a muddle! The help has entered through the front door and the Duchess and Prince enter through the kitchen door. These are dizzy folks indeed: the Duchess mistakes the kitchen, claiming she has “never seen one,” for a drawing room and the Earl made toast hours ago, but has “forgotten where [he] put it.” When the bread turns up, scorched, in the oven, Susan exclaims, “Oh, my beloved father!” in a brief musical quotation from Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.

Susan is dead-set against the match with the Prince, but, as they are left alone, their courtship makes headway, in their duet—brisk, as he challenges her on a recipe for pickled walnuts, then melting, as she apologizes for botching the delicacy and he, for mistaking her for the maid—and solos—her romanza about cherries, his favorite fruit, and his serenade, with the dulcet shepherd’s song. The Duchess welcomes Susan—“ Come, my dear, to Monteblanco”—as the solution “to revive a dying race,” kicking off a joyous septet before the happy couple’s final love duet.

MSM Opera Theater’s spring production will be Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon (Cinderella) on April 26, 28 and 30.

Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, 120 Claremont Avenue

December 7 & 9 at 8 pm, 11 at 2:30 pm