It is especially touching because, like so many service workers, this woman behind the counter came to New York City to be an actor or singer. He even writes a coloratura comic number for a comprimario, the saleswoman (the delightful Kathleen Kim) in a Manhattan shop when Clarissa buys flowers for the party to honor her dying poet-friend, Richard (Kyle Ketelsen in strong voice despite the character’s state of health). That’s not the case with Puts, who writes for strong divas as well as divos. And they sing unabashedly about their demons and what haunts them in big arias. In the opera version, however, Kevin Puts’ music and Greg Pierce’s libretto turn all three into genuine divas, and as with all divas from the great verismo operas, these women are tormented. Cunningham’s characters are much less theatrical: the editor Clarissa Vaughan (Fleming), the novelist Virginia Woolf (DiDonato) and the housewife-mother Laura Brown (O’Hara). The title characters in “Tosca” and “Adriana Lecouvreur” are performers – one a singer, the other an actress. And who knows? She just might put new life into the old warhorse. Opera lovers often find themselves being compelled to see another “Tosca” or “Adriana Lecouvreur,” not because they like those two operas very much, but because it’s worth seeing a new diva take on the title role. Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato and Kelli O’Hara take over here for, respectively, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore in the 2002 film version based on the 1998 novel by Michael Cunningham. Not only has it been written for a diva, the show is about a diva – and in this case, three of them. The new opera “The Hours” is wonderful in the most old-fashioned kind of way. “Wonderful” is a word that Clarissa Vaughan says a lot, even though her close friend Richard tells her it is one he has never put in one of his poems.

Michael cunningham the hours