Johnny Schicchi is a redneck liar, cheat and scoundrel in the University of Tennessee Opera Theater's contemporary Las Vegas Mafia-connected family setting of Giacomo Puccini's one-act opera "Gianni Schicchi" about Don Buoso Donati, whose relatives cannot wait for the family patriarch to croak before scheming to divvy up his holdings.
The big problem is that, despite the means by which Buoso Donati made his fortune, they suspect his will gives everything to the church.
Unwilling to wait until he dies on his own, they hasten the feeble man's passing by a variety of means, from smothering and choking to shooting him, all of which one witnesses in Donati's dimly lit bedroom before the opera begins.
Once they're sure he's dead, there is a mad scramble to find the will before any outsiders find out what it declares.
Their worst suspicions are true. Most effective in the family's lamentations over their loss (the riches, not the old man) are Rinuccio, the son of Buoso's cousin Zita, and Simone, another of Buoso's cousins and a feeble man himself.
Rinuccio, very well sung by Stefan Barner, Simone, sung equally well by Andrew Gilchrist, are generations apart, but just as greedy.
Then they have the 'aha' moment that if anyone knows how to cheat a dead man, it would be Johnny Schicchi.
The only problem turns out to be that Schicchi, delightfully sung by Jesse Strock, knows how to cheat them, too. And he does by impersonating the dead man and dictating a will that leaves everything to himself.
Right about then, Schicchi's daughter Lauretta, beautifully sung by Jessica Cates in the performance I saw, sings one of opera's most famous arias, "O mio babbino caro" (Oh, my dear papa), about her good fortune at her father's fortune.
In the second one-act opera on this two-opera bill, both of which are directed by Carroll Freeman, the singing is entirely of a different kind.
American composer Stephen Paulus' "The Village Singer" takes place in a church and in the house next door.
The church choir has gotten tired of its soloist, Candice Whitcomb, appealingly sung by Amanda Peavyhouse, and boots her out, with nothing more than a small party and a picture album to say thanks but no thanks.
Relegated to the living room of her house next door, Whitcomb exacts her revenge by opening her windows and singing at the top of her lungs every time the choir and its new soloist, Alma Way, sung by Valerie Haber, sing a hymn.
Despite the efforts of Reverend Pollard, sung by Cody Boling, and William Emmons, Whitcomb's nephew, sung by Evan Broadhead, Whitcomb persists.
But, in spite of her stubbornness, in the end, it is she who finally teaches the lesson of do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
You can take in both operas again at 8 p.m. today at the Bijou Theatre.
Harold Duckett is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.
© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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