Leicht got tired of swashbuckling and decided to imitate Platonic dialogue instead. The opera ends about 20 minutes after it should the dramatic climax is followed by a rather ponderous political digression. Leicht's script is often witty, as when Tuck debunks Robin's ethos: ''If you rob enough from the rich you make them poor if you give the poor enough money you make them rich, and you're back where you started from.'' The score is lightweight, falling somewhere between ''Man of La Mancha'' and ''A Chorus Line.'' But it is the work of craftsmen, there are some good show tunes and few pretensions impede the flow of the stage action. ''The Adventures of Friar Tuck'' is no masterpiece. Sue Anne Gershenson was a fetching, impetuous Maid Marian, James Sergi made an appropriately sinister Sheriff of Nottingham and Cris Groenendaal brought an amusing touch of Hollywood flash to the role of the laid-back King Richard the Lionhearted.

He was supported by Garry Harger, who gave a blustering charm to the role of Robert Fitzooth, the star-struck, bumbling country boy who matures into the dashing Robin Hood, under the tutelage of Tuck, his personal Svengali. Nolen, who possesses a strong baritone voice and a visceral stage presence, brought Tuck to bristling life. Timothy Nolen's full-dimensional portrayal of the besotted, ambitious Tuck was the fulcrum. Still, the opera makes for an entertaining evening, and there was much to admire in Thursday's performance. It is in two acts and overlong and includes an oddly anticlimactic final scene. ''The Adventures of Friar Tuck,'' which features music by Glenn Paxton and a libretto by Allan Leicht, was presented under the auspices of the Lake George Opera Festival. The latest to endure this contemporary acid test is the ever-green story of Robin Hood and his merry men.Īccording to an engaging new opera, ''The Adventures of Friar Tuck,'' which received its world premiere at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on Thursday night, this seminal, agrarian Socialist was little more than the creation of a Machiavellian monk. We live in an age of revisionism, and many long-cherished myths have recently come up for re-evaluation.

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