Unfairly or not, opera is often perceived today as the bastion of a cultural elite, an art form appreciated by those who revere tradition and social convention. But that’s precisely what makes it the perfect vehicle for attacking preconceived notions of propriety, as Vancouver Opera audiences will discover this coming week when the company brings its original coproduction with Pacific Opera Victoria of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring to the Queen Elizabeth stage.

Based on a story by Guy de Maupassant and set in a small English town, the comic opera follows the ruination—or liberation, depending on your view—of Albert Herring, a repressed, chaste mama’s boy who is crowned “May King” when a suitably virtuous young woman cannot be found in the village. Humiliated, Albert rebels by going on a bender, throwing off the shackles of his domineering mother and scandalizing the town in a single night of debauchery. Director Glynis Leyshon has updated the original’s Edwardian-set action to the 1950s, in a homage to the time during which the composer penned the work.

“He did write it just after the war, in ’47, ’48, when he was really very inspired to give people a sense of hope after the horrors of World War II. I think he’s inviting people not just to laugh because laughter is good, although it is, but also that life has possibilities,” explains Leyshon, by phone. “Really, it’s a story about a young man freeing himself from social constraints.”

Toronto-based tenor Lawrence Wiliford, who sings the title role, remarks that the work does not often get the large-stage treatment it deserves. “I think a lot of companies are scared to program it,” the mild-mannered young singer observes, over coffee in Vancouver’s West End. “I think it’s extremely accessible, but I think there’s a perception that anything that’s past Wagner or Strauss is difficult for the audience. If you’re doing Bohème every three years…after a certain point people aren’t going to come and see Bohème anymore. Everybody loves Bohème, but I stopped going to it.”

While Wiliford, who has a special fondness for Britten, was excited to take on the role, he confides that he did want to ensure the work wouldn’t go the route of so many others, and make a central issue of the composer’s sexuality. “There’s a trend in the past 20 years or so that all Britten operas have to make some sort of social statement about Benjamin Britten being gay,” he notes. “When it’s done all of the time, in every single opera, it gets old a little quick, and there’s a whole lot more to Britten than one aspect of life.”

Leyshon, for her part, agrees. “Truthfully, Albert Herring is about trying to liberate from very, very, very tight conventions, where somebody is considered, you know, the wild-and-craziest if they come to the door in their nightie,” she says. “I think this play is a call to humanity to think bigger than that, and invite yourself to enjoy life—because the biggest theme that we hear over and over and over again in the opera is that time is so fleeting. Time is a thief: blink and 50 years have passed, so don’t waste your life.”

Above all, the work is simply very, very funny. “The role is such a joy because Albert gets to explore these really brilliant comedic moments,” Wiliford stresses. “This opera is just so much fun. This cast is the most fun I have ever had with any cast, ever.…Our first sing-through we were laughing as much as we were singing.”

And it’s the type of opera he hopes audiences will be seeing more of in future. “I think we need to embrace the fact that opera’s no longer just this grand tradition,” he concludes. “It’s got to have something to say to us now. We need to engage it in a different kind of way.... There’s all this amazing repertoire that, as a general audience, we don’t allow ourselves to take in.”

Consider this newest VO production your permission granted.

Vancouver Opera’s Albert Herring runs from Saturday (November 30) to December 8 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.