Performer: Alex Lawrence

Julietta, Bohuslav Martinů’s seldom performed surrealistic opera of dreams and lost identity recently premiered in a new Zurich production.

Whether you call it Un giorno di regno or “King for a Day”, Giuseppe Verdi’s second opera and his first comedy is mostly unknown. That has not stopped the Glimmerglass Festival from mounting a spirited production for its 2013 season in the Alice Busch Opera Theatre on the shores of Otsego Lake in upstate New York.

While recordings of Arabella abound, operagoers could conceivably go years without actually seeing the piece performed. Compared to the frequency with which companies present Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Salome, Richard Strauss’s Arabella is an infrequently seen gem.