Antiwar opera rises from darkness

“Emperor’’ has since become an important work of Holocaust art. But can it also stand up as a compelling modern one-act opera? Boston Lyric Opera’s bold new English-language production, which opened Tuesday night at the Calderwood Pavilion, should close the argument. Director David Schweizer’s tart, nimble staging plays up the work’s dark comic aspects, its abundant debts to Weimar-era cabaret. The piece commandingly holds the stage. And when viewed with a knowledge of its history — the spirit of defiance and reckless hope embodied in its original creation — “Emperor’’ ultimately glows with a piercing luminosity.

Tuesday night opened with the premiere of Richard Beaudoin’s evocative if elusive work “The After-Image,’’ cast as a lyrical exchange between a daughter and a photograph of her late father. Scored for two vocal soloists and the instrumental forces (clarinet, violin, cello, piano) of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,’’ the piece uses text by Rilke, Ruckert, and William Henry Fox Talbot to dramatize the intergenerational dialog and to ruminate on how photographs mediate our relationship to the past.

But the evening actually started well before then, as Schweizer plied audience members on arrival with an odd bit of performance art involving would-be ushers. It’s all basically harmless, but if you see “Emperor’’ — and you should — come with a sense of the piece beforehand. A mock program, part of the conceit, does not mention the opera, let alone tell you anything about it. Afterward I met someone who seemed to have had gone in cold and emerged somewhat baffled.