There’s a sleep-away camp feel to the Yard off Middle Road in Chilmark: office over here, summer-blooming party tent over there, and modest, grey-shingled, single-story cottages for visiting dancers, choreographers, singers and other artistes scattered throughout the woods.

At the center is the barn-like space of the theatre, with its ell-shaped deck and adjoining dance studio. Outside there, a bright enamel-red table sits under a shade tree where Yard artistic director, choreographer and director of this weekend’s opera program, Wendy Taucher, holds an al fresco conference with six crew members: E. St. John Villard on lighting, Arthur Oliver on costumes, Scott Crawford as stage manager, Nicole Lee Aiossa as associate director/choreographer, Caitlin Trainor as associate choreographer, and Julie Aubin Heller as company manager.

Ms. Taucher is dressed in a no-nonsense, navy blue, long-sleeved shirt and navy slacks, but her canary yellow clogs hint at the creative mischief ever lurking in her psyche.

It’s 1 p.m. on Friday, August 7, only seven hours to the premiere of the operatic crazy-quilt titled Kings, Queens, Witches and Drunks, and Dido and Aeneas, so Ms. Taucher’s notes to her techies are delivered with the understanding that everyone knows what he and she is doing: No last-minute hysterics for this team in the manner of that old Broadway show tune, “Four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse, three weeks and it couldn’t be worse, one week will it ever be right?, and out of the racket it’s opening night.” All of that chaos may have ensued before this sunny Friday afternoon, but an aura of confidence, generated top-down by Ms. Taucher, carries the day.

Inside the theatre, the choreographer smooths out some last moves with the sorceress and two witches (Anna Tonna, Nicole Lee Aiossa and Laura Bohn), three evil ladies who put a spell on the Trojan prince Aeneas, to trick him into leaving his new paramour, Queen Dido of Carthage.

(In the original story of the Aeneid, the hero is driven by divine destiny to sacrifice his own personal happiness in order to found the city of Rome; in Henry Purcell’s opera of 1689, the lovers have simply fallen afoul of a female fiend; perhaps she harbored past issues with the queen.)

“I want to clean up where the switches happen,” says Ms. Taucher, meaning the interlinking undulations she’s worked out for the witches, as their arms insinuate themselves around each other like the snakes of Medusa’s hair. Very effective: beautiful and creepy.

Meanwhile from somewhere else on the Yard grounds, a man’s basso profondo voice warms up in the woods. At the choreographer’s side, a half-eaten sandwich lies largely ignored. Ms. Taucher tells the sorceress, “You have eyes all over your head so you don’t actually have to turn to look at how the witches are following your signals.”

When the director takes a short break, Ms. Aiossa and Ms. Bohn wallop out a few snatches of song. You’re amazed to realize these women who move with such elegance are primarily exquisitely trained singers.

The cast has been rehearsing in New York, with music director and conductor Elizabeth W. Scott, who debuted at the Yard last summer with dual performances of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri and Wolf-Ferrari’s Il Segreto di Susanna. Among her many accomplishments, she conducts with the Bronx Opera Company and this season she was awarded the prestigious Bruno Walter Assistant Chair and study grant.

Ms. Taucher, who has directed and choreographed operas and musicals in New York and other international venues, is now pulling the whole package — song and dance — together, cheered on, to be sure, by her canary yellow clogs.

That night, for Act One (the Kings, Queens, Witches and Drunks part of the program), the lights dim on the full house and brighten the stage for a duet from La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, Libiamo ne’lierti calici, with Noah Stewart and mezzo soprano Samantha Guevrekian. Yu Lee is on keyboard and supertitles are supplied by Anita McFarlane.

Co-opting Verdi again, in Come dal ciel precipita from Macbeth, bass baritone Victor Clark spills out his well-sung woes. Douglas McDonnell does likewise in an aria from Erlkonig by Franz Schubert.

Soprano Melissa Fogarty ably performs from Waldesgesprach by Robert Schumann. Bass-voiced Jorge Ocasio delivers an aria from La Cenerentola by Rossini, and soprano Molly Davey takes a polished run at the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s Die Zauberflote.

Ms. Taucher reveals that the musical pieces were culled for their related themes and also to give singers an opportunity to try something challenging and new. Once the performers are cast, collective bargaining begins, with directors and singers brainstorming opera selections.

The New York and Chilmark-based choreographer has directed productions of Dido and Aeneas twice before, but this was her first opportunity to do the hiring: “Often I’m hired after the cast is in place,” says Ms. Taucher. This meant that the versatile tenor Noah Stewart as Aeneas and mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson as Dido — in addition to everyone else in the cast, Katrina Thurman, Ms. Fogarty, Ms. Tonno, Ms. Aiossa, Ms. Bohn, Mr. McDonnell, Ms. Davey, Sarah Hutchison, Ms. Guevrekian, Alison Taylor Cheeseman, Christine Fordney, Kannan Vasudevan, Mr. Ocasio, Mr. Clark, Nathan Carlisle, plus Edgartown third-grader Camden Coffin Emery and West Tisbury second-grader Violet Hunter Cabot (as boy and girl cupids) — all were Ms. Taucher’s top choices.

From the glittering court on the shores of North Africa, with Dido at the center swathed in orange satin and strands of jewels, to the sinister cave of the bad bat girls, to the lovers with their entourages beset by the heartbreak that will bring about the birth of Rome, the death of Dido, and the conflagration of Carthage, this short opera is rich with story, suspense, brilliant song and exotic textures.

The Yard has expanded its mission to bring exciting and accessible theatre, art and opera to the center, in addition to its decades-long tradition of superb dance. This new production is one more jaunty hat tossed in its ring. (FYI, you can take a Boston Red Sox fan to this opera, and he might grudgingly enjoy it – he loved the burnt orange witch costumes — but you can’t avoid putting in some Fenway Park time in return.)

In the orchestra, accompanying Mr. Lee on the keyboard are Susan McGhee, first violin, Audrey Lo, second violin, Mehmet Aydin, viola, Stephen McGhee, cello, and Chris Johnson, double bass.

Dido and Aeneas will be running tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m. and a free, shortened family matinee Saturday at 4 p.m. For tickets or information, call 509-645-9662.