Sheriffs and bandits are usually rivals, but this time it's over a woman. One card decides their fate as Opera Coeur d'Alene brings "The Girl of the Golden West," a 100-year-old Puccini opera set in an American, old-West mining town.

At 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12, and 2 p.m. Sept. 14, at North Idaho College's Schuler Auditorium, the fully-staged performance - with internationally recognized opera artists and a regional, professional orchestra - will top a season of firsts for Coeur d'Alene's own professional opera destination.

Tickets for the show range from $29 to $59.

The company also announces a season which, for the first time, includes a performance at The Hagadone Event Center at The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course. The "Opera Bash: Celebrating 15 years of Opera in CdA!" will be there Sept. 15.

Principals and chorus from "The Girl of the Golden West" will offer a variety of operatic music. Guests can watch the sun set on Lake Coeur d'Alene and enjoy the music with hors d'oeuvres and drinks. A live auction will feature a week in a chateau in Bordeaux, France, along with many other items chosen to be unique and interesting to those who enjoy the fine arts. The cost of the bash is $65.

Also for the first time, this season the opera cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene will be an actual show. "Pirates of Penzance," slightly abridged, will be Opera Coeur d'Alene's first Gilbert and Sullivan program and it will feature Curt Olds, national guru of Gilbert and Sullivan. Olds will be coming fresh from Carnegie Hall's "Guys and Dolls" with Nathan Lane, to sing the role of the major general. Others in the cast include regional favorites each with national careers: diva Dawn Wolski as Mabel, Jadd Davis as Frederick, Susan Windham as Ruth, Kent Kimball as the Sergeant and Opera Coeur d'Alene's own artistic director, Aaron Nicholson - himself a Metropolitan artist - who will be the Pirate King.

The two-hour cruise around Lake Coeur d'Alene, the evening of July 13, costs $65 for table seating with hors d'oeuvres, and $50 for general seating.

Another first this year: season tickets covering all three events are available at a reduced price. The combination includes premium Golden Girl seats, the Opera Bash and table seating on the cruise for $170.

Tickets won't be needed to Opera Coeur d'Alene's educational offering of Hnsel and Gretel, written by 19th century composer Engelbert Humperdinck from whom the 20th century pop singer borrowed his name. As in past years, the show will be taken as a live performance into elementary schools across the Inland Northwest. The public will have opportunity to see it for free, Sunday, May 18 at First Presbyterian Church on Lakeside.

Audiences will recognize the lush music of "The Girl of the Golden West" as the original source of music used 80 years later by Andrew Lloyd Weber in "Phantom of the Opera." Puccini's three-act opera about America's Wild West premiered at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1910, with bar fights, guns, bandits, a lot of press attention and large audiences. It was a forerunner to several decades of "Spaghetti Westerns," such as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," made by European producers and directors fascinated with America's western frontier.

Opera Coeur d'Alene's performance will feature Jill Gardner as Minnie. The Syracuse New Times called Gardner a "powerhouse soprano," Coral Gables Gazette praised her "sparkling personality," and Opera News wrote "her passion and ability to convey the slightest nuance of emotion make for gripping theater."

Canadian tenor Roger Honeywell will sing the role of bandit Dick Johnson, who was first played by the great Enrico Caruso under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

Called a singer with "burnished sound and crisp diction... full of leaps and dips," Opera News says Honeywell's "stage sense is second to none."

The sheriff, Jack Rance, will be sung by rising Korean-American baritone, Hyung Yun. He has sung lead roles at the Metropolitan Opera, with Renee Fleming under the direction of James Levine, and was invited to sing in the 50th Anniversary Gala of Santa Fe Opera. He will be coming to Coeur d'Alene by way of the Seattle Opera, where he will sing the title role in "Rigoletto."

Supporting Golden Girl roles will be sung by regional professionals and accompanied by Opera Coeur d'Alene's chorus and symphony, both comprised of artists from throughout the Inland Northwest. It will be performed here in the original Italian, but with English translation projected simultaneously overhead.

Tickets for each event or for the season may be purchased now at operacda.com, by phoning (800) 418-1485 option 1, or at the Opera Coeur d'Alene box office, 4951 Building Center Drive, No. 105, Coeur d'Alene.