A gentleman is placidly listening to the sound of music from his perch in an opera house balcony when a man behind him -- a stranger -- whispers in his ear:
"I cannot hide my feelings for you any longer."
The gentleman's eyes balloon in terror.
As the operatic singer bellows below in Italian, the stranger continues: "The fire is burning in my heart and in my loins."
The gentleman fixes his tie in growing discomfort.
The stranger leans in again: "I long for the taste of your ruby red lips."
The gentleman is frozen.
Cut to: "English translations at every performance . . . The Baltimore Opera."
Not your everyday theater experience. Nor is it your everyday television commercial -- according to judges of the 21st Best in Baltimore ADDY awards, the equivalent of the Oscars for the local advertising community.
Gray Kirk VanSant won top prize -- best-in-show -- for creating the Baltimore Opera commercial, besting more than 800 entries in a Saturday evening awards program held by The Advertising Association of Baltimore and emceed by comedian Bill McCuddy.
Competition was fierce in the television and print categories, but entries were weaker in radio, said judge Ernie Roth, president of Furman Roth Advertising in New York.
"There was a lot of stuff in there that I just didn't understand why they were entered," he said.
Irreverent humor seemed to prevail in this year's batch of commercials, but judges singled out the Gray Kirk VanSant commercial for its clever take on the arcane world of opera.
"It was a very unique approach, the execution was original and there was an element of surprise," said judge Allison R. Polly, vice president and creative manager of McCann-Erickson New York. "It was the winner."
Gray Kirk VanSant also tied Eisner & Associates for one of the other major distinctions of the evening, capturing the most ADDYs -- eight.
Eisner owed its success partly to "Monkey Boy," a TV ad for the Baltimore Zoo that garnered two awards.
There were no major surprises -- the big firms once again got most of the recognition.
Cornerstone, however, won six ADDYs, despite a staff less than half the size of either Gray Kirk VanSant, or Eisner & Associates, according to 1994 figures.
A week earlier, Ball Advertising & Marketing, a Lancaster-based firm with a Baltimore sales office, won the most ADDY awards in the central Pennsylvania region.
The judges for the Baltimore contest, all New York creative ad veterans, bestowed 42 awards in all at the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor during a black-tie affair with white-glove service and a menu of filet mignon and Norwegian salmon.
The winners will square off in regional, then national ADDY contests. Meanwhile, they carry home engraved silver plates and an edge in attracting new business.
"When you're in competition with other firms to win a piece of business, if you're absent in award-winning portfolios, that's one reason why someone can rule you out," said Gregory I. DesRoches, president of the Baltimore ad association and head of Cornerstone.
Baltimore advertising, though smaller than the markets in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, is an estimated $1 billion industry, including out-of-town billings, with more than 60 agencies and graphic designers.
"People's perception is that you need to go to Madison Avenue to find an agency that can deliver excellent creative work that's going to generate results," Mr. DesRoches said. "That's simply not true. There's dynamic work being done here."