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A lot to like, a little to love, nothing to regret in a big way: Les Feluettes, which received its world première Saturday night under the auspices of the Opéra de Montréal, is a rare case of a full-size and full-length contemporary opera that holds the stage while remaining artistically true to itself.

If some of those love duets seemed prolonged and a few of those plot twists needed to be taken on faith, there was no restraint in the cheering of the crowd in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts.

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This all-male melodrama with music by Kevin March is based on a play of the same title by Michel Marc Bouchard (which has gained some currency in English as a movie called Lilies). An aging bishop is brought to prison to hear a confession from an old same-sex love interest. Instead, he is confronted with a re-enactment by inmates of episodes from his youth that led to the incarceration.

Not a likely scenario, but one that established a certain quota of emotional truth in the opening scene and sustained it through various changes of setting and mood. While a prison does not promise much in visual variety, director Serge Denoncourt made a little — a crucifix, a hot-air balloon, a giant shroud, a few choice projections — go a long way. Party scenes at the Roberval Hotel (in the Lac-St-Jean area) as presented behind bars in institutional grey had an interesting resonance. Life, after all, can be like that.