He’s not wrong: “L’Amant Anonyme,” a romantic comedy about a secret admirer along the lines of “The Shop Around the Corner,” is frothy and fun, as easy and forgettable as an episode of “Bridgerton,” with enjoyable arias throughout its brisk 90 minutes. The plot nods to class difference without making anything meaningful of it. That would be too much friction for an opera that doesn’t appear to aspire to anything more than entertainment.
The staging at Opera Philadelphia, a co-production with Boston Lyric Opera, leans heavily into comedy. Called “The Anonymous Lover,” its spoken dialogue was adapted into English by the playwright Kirsten Greenidge, whose text, combined with Dennis Whitehead Darling’s direction, packs a laugh into every minute. (The arias, discordantly, remain in French.)
In the orchestra pit on Sunday afternoon, Kalena Bovell led a pleasantly flowing account of the score, as if it were an extended dance rather than a story punctuated by musical numbers. That’s fitting for a story that unfolds as a single gesture: Valcour, the anonymous lover of the title, revealing himself to his friend Léontine, after several years of gifts and letters. Léontine, like Meg Ryan in the “Shop Around the Corner”-inspired “You’ve Got Mail,” wanted it to be him so badly. They end up together, and happy.
The secondary characters also couple up: the scheming friends Ophémon and Dorothée, sung by the baritone Johnathan McCullough and the mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce, both with endless charisma, and the engaged lovers Colin and Jeannette, charmingly tender in the tenor Joshua Blue’s and the soprano Ashley Marie Robillard’s interpretations.
The most openhearted, dramatic arias are reserved for the central couple. The tenor Travon D. Walker’s Valcour was by turns burning with desire and endearing as he dithered on the way to declaring his love. As Léontine, the soprano Symone Harcum had a role that demanded more virtuosity, which she rose to with mixed success.
What, now, for “L’Amant Anonyme”? Its post-2020 wave of productions is ebbing, and unlike Bologne’s wonderful violin concertos, it is more skillful than original. As an opera, it’s also much more difficult to revive.
There’s no question, though, about whether it should return. The opera repertoire can be stubborn, but it needs the occasional confection like this. At the very least, “L’Amant Anonyme” doesn’t deserve to be ignored for so long again.
