Undercroft Opera, founded a year ago by Mary Beth Sederburg of Squirrel Hill, is not your typical opera company. For one, none of the singers gets paid. Instead, the volunteer company offers stage opportunities, getting Pittsburghers the invaluable experience of performing leading roles.

"There has been a great deal of enthusiasm from the performers and audience about it," says Sederburg. "It is very difficult in this country to find entry-level work in operas and we hope to offer that. Eventually we would like to pay the leads, but in the meantime I would rather keep the performances happening and have as many people as possible participate."

Plenty are involved in Undercroft Opera's new production of "The Tales of Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach.

It stars Robert Frankenberry in the title role, along with a cast of 30 singers including Patrick McNally, Erica Kudisch, Alexis Bloom, Rebecca Rumfelt and Elizabeth Downey and more. Woody Brown conducts. The stage direction by Sally Denmeade updates the opera and has fun, placing the tales in Las Vegas, the Adirondacks and Pittsburgh in the 1960s and '70s.

"The centerpiece act in a Las Vegas casino will be the 'Saturday Night Fever' of opera," says Sederburg. "We wrote a new libretto that updates the opera, retranslating much of the original French, but it remains in the opera-comique style with spoken dialogue. I think the production will be unique and fun."