The Thursday evening final dress of Gioachino Rossini's romp of an opera, The Italian Girl in Algiers, convinced a lot of area students that opera is not just a fuddy-duddy bunch of screaming. Great voices, fantastic production values, constant business going on all over the stage makes audience members fearful of looking away, even to blink.

Set in the 1920s, his near fairy tale involves an Algerian emir, or something, who has grown tired of his wife, Elvira, and wants to (bloodlessly) get rid of her and acquire an Italian girl to add to his harem.

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Source: http://www.examiner.com