Halifax Summer Opera Festival presents two fully staged comic operas running in repertory from August 11 to 19, sung by young Canadian and American singers at Halifax Central Library and the Maritime Conservatory of the Performing Arts.

Visit the Halifax Summer Opera Festival website for a complete schedule of performance times and dates.

The operas are Handel’s Serse, sung in Italian, and the sparkling operetta, La jolie parfumeuse by Jacques Offenbach. Both productions feature projected English translations.

Serse is the surprisingly funny story of a ruthless absolute monarch with a very complicated love life and the people around him who have to deal with it. The music features some of Handel’s most beloved melodies.

The farcical La jolie parfumeuse, or The Pretty Perfumer, tells the story of a young couple, Rose and Bavolet, on their wedding day, Bavolet’s scheming godfather and Rose, The Pretty Perfumer.