Singer Daniel Okulitch prepares for a dramatic transformation during a performance of The Fly at Paris's Théâtre du Chatelet. Based on his 1986 movie of the same name, The Fly is directed by David Cronenberg and conducted by Placido Domingo. (Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images)

“Your flesh is a library.”

“A dissertation.”

If ever a more bizarre exchange was delivered by a mezzo soprano and a bass baritone, it certainly wasn’t at Paris’s Théâtre du Chatelet, built in 1862 on the site of an ancient fortress by the Seine River. But the premiere of one of the theatre’s more experimental productions, an operatic adaptation of David Cronenberg’s 1987 gore-fest The Fly, was greeted Wednesday evening with hoots, whistles and riotous applause even before the curtain rose on Act 1.

Cronenberg himself is directing the opera, abetted by his longtime collaborator Howard Shore. The duo, along with musical director Plácido Domingo, obviously had some fans in Paris that night. And, by and large, The Fly (La Mouche, to locals) didn’t disappoint — although it moves to Los Angeles after a brief two-week run, so staying power isn’t an issue.

The production doesn’t do horror like its 1980s namesake, in which “mad genius” Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) experiments with teleportation and ends up fusing his DNA with that of a housefly. Meanwhile, his lover, Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), carries on the Scream Queen tradition and gets knocked up with the creature’s spawn. In many ways, the stage version is closer to the original 1958 movie, based on the story La Mouche Noire by French author George Langelaan. For one thing, it is set in the mid-20th century, perhaps a more theatrical, singing/dancing era than the big-haired, loose-pleated ’80s.

Canadian director David Cronenberg. (Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images)

The action begins at a science convention, a scene of cinched waists, sculpted bangs and suited nerds into which magazine reporter Veronica Quaife (Romanian Ruxandra Donose) — “Cinderella among the pumpkins” — enters.

“Care for a smoke?” the reclusive scientist Seth Brundle (Calgary-raised bass baritone Daniel Okulitch) asks her.

“No, I quit ages ago,” she responds, before ultimately giving in, then following him back to his industrial loft to see an experiment he says “will change the world as we know it.” I should mention here that the script, adapted by Tony-winning, Pulitzer-nominated writer David Henry Hwang, is by turns hammy and banal.

Brundle manages to pique Quaife’s interest by successfully teleporting the silk stocking she has saucily rolled off her leg — but he didn’t pique mine. Pale, milk-fed, manicured blonds both, Okulitch and Donose can’t quite compete with the tall, dark duo that fired up the big screen in 1986 with their loose necklines and plump lips. But these two can sing, and Donose owns her character, which is more than can be said about the sex-without-substance Geena Davis.

Howard Shore spent three years of his life getting the production to stage. It’s even longer when you consider that he and Cronenberg were discussing the story’s operatic possibilities back when it was still earning accolades on screen. The transition might seem a stretch to some, but the overriding themes — longing, forbidden flesh, metamorphosis, redemption — are practically Wagnerian, and Shore recognized this.

“It was Howard’s desire always to write an opera, so the impetus was primarily from him,” Cronenberg told me in an interview before the performance. “I was flattered that he invited me to come along on this adventure. We did the original Fly together, but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily the best person to direct his opera.” That may be, but after the premiere, as Cronenberg praised his cast and crew for pulling it together, they marvelled to me about his coolness and composure. “And he’s so nice,” they all added. Stage manager, press agents — even Okulitch, the Fly himself: “So nice.”

It’s hard to believe that just two hours earlier, Cronenberg had been watching contentedly as the performers fried a furry white baboon onstage — the victim of a botched teleportation. (It was only a muppet, but I still couldn’t bear to look.) That, to me, is the most frightening moment in Cronenberg’s movie: when we witness Seth Brundle’s first stab at teleporting flesh and blood turn into graphic failure. This is before his carnal affair with Quaife spurs him to greater, if more damnable success.

Onstage, it is no less ugly. Yet Cronenberg spares us the messy climax, allowing the powerful voices and Domingo’s remarkable crescendos convey the terror. As the director said in a press conference after the dress rehearsal: “It is in some ways a translation of the movie to the stage, but it’s its own creature.”

From left, conductor Placido Domingo, composer Howard Shore and singers Ruxandra Donose and Daniel Okulitch salute the audience after their performance. (Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images)

For the most part, the audience members at the Théâtre du Chatelet were transported themselves. “I was surprised,” Cronenberg told me after his multiple curtain calls. “People seemed to be having a good time. I was afraid they’d all be asleep. I was surprised, because I’d heard the French can be stingy with their applause.”

Well, they weren’t quite as generous with their applause after the lights dimmed on Act 1. They didn’t seem to know what to make of the stark-naked, newly teleported Okulitch standing before them like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man, having belted out less-than-Wagnerian gems like: “…sub-atomic recombitant… silicon 37.001 per cent….” It was madness and genius in turn.

Regardless, Cronenberg looked satisfied as Paris feted him, having pulled off his latest experiment — far more gracefully, I might add, than the doomed Seth Brundle pulled off his.

Ellen Himelfarb is a Canadian writer living in London, England.