British composer Jonathan Dove's best known opera is Flight, a kind of comic-opera Airport movie, but with much more sophisticated plot lines. That colorful work, written in 1998, was followed a year later by Tobias and the Angel, a "church opera" based on the Book of Tobit, a text considered apocryphal in Hebrew and Protestant canon.

While Flight quickly crossed the Atlantic and has been successfully staged in a couple of U.S. cities, Tobias and the Angel is only now being readied for its North American premiere by Opera Vivente, Baltimore's chamber opera company. Heading the cast as the Angel is David Walker, a countertenor and Dove fan more frequently heard at major opera houses. Company general director John Bowen discussed the process of choosing, understanding and staging this unusual work in the darkly beautiful 1895 nave of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Mount Vernon.

Opera Opera Vivente's production of Jonathan Dove's Tobias and the Angel is at 8 p.m. Feb. 28-March 1 and 3 p.m. March 2 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 811 Cathedral St. Call 410-547-7997 or go to operavivente.org.