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ONLY A FEW DAYS LATER, we had another "Der Abschied," this time as part of a complete Das Lied von der Erde with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic — their season-long "Mahler Journey" of last year reaching its conclusion. Shirai and Höll would be a hard act to follow under any circumstances. Mezzo-soprano Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, the former flutist in Sarah Caldwell’s orchestra, has a strong voice, with impressively resonant low notes. But her self-satisfied delivery seemed less a spiritual than a vocal exercise. She seemed less at home during the performance than in her Carol Burnett–ish fooling around with her chair, her gown, and her bouquet before and after it.

Her vocal companion was tenor Thomas Young, who’s now best known as one of the Three Mo’ Tenors. I’ll never forget him in the title role of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex or in Anthony Davis’s X. But in this taxing work, singing over Mahler’s climactic orchestral outbursts, this gifted character singer seemed oddly affectless as the inebriated poet who commits his life to drinking. The performer who seemed most inside the piece was oboist Peggy Pearson, who played Mahler’s heartbreaking solos as if she were singing.

The Jordan Hall performance last Saturday came on the heels of the Globe’s review of the Sanders Theatre performance two nights before, a performance that David Weininger thought sounded under-rehearsed. Perhaps this time, Zander was being too careful. The main theme of the Adagio of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, the most completed movement in that unfinished score, seemed square and directionless instead of tenderly reaching (perhaps hopelessly) forward. In the most powerful performances, the cataclysmic nine-note chord, one of the earliest examples of atonality in orchestral writing, seems like the end of the world (or a world). To judge by his pre-concert talk, that was what Zander intended. But that moment sounded oddly understated — less Apocalypse than the climax of some organ recital.

Perhaps there wasn’t enough dynamic modulation (a remaining problem of Jordan Hall’s new acoustics?), not enough contrast with quieter parts. There weren’t many quieter parts in either piece. The playing didn’t sound under-rehearsed to me, and the earlier movements of Das Lied were lively and colorful. But some essential shaping of phrases (what Zander does best) was missing. This "Farewell" seemed not so much "eternal" as interminable.

I WAS LOOKING FORWARD to my first live performance of Offenbach’s La vie parisienne, with Opera Boston. Except for the occasional Fledermaus and Gilbert & Sullivan, there isn’t much operetta in Boston, and almost no Offenbach — maybe because no one understands the style anymore. (Or maybe no one gets the style because there are so few performances.) Gil Rose and the orchestra came closest to getting it right, capturing the fizz, the elegance, the captivating long-lined melodies and hinting at the underlying seriousnesss. A couple of designer Anita Fuchs’s sets were economically evocative and witty, not just economical. Although stage director Rick Lombardo (artistic director of the New Repertory Theatre, which last year gave Boston a well-received if somewhat heavy-handed Threepenny Opera) made no attempt to convey a French style, he kept things buoyantly humming — at least in the first half. Even the English translation — often the death of operetta in this country — was minimally literate. (But was it translator Geoffrey Dunn’s intention to have 19th-century characters say "Okay" or to have one of them, Bobinet, continually referred to as Bob?)

American musical-comedy isn’t the worst model for operetta when there’s no other model. But Opera Boston allowed this production to fall into the traps that have spoiled some of the company’s earlier attempts: archness, mugging, and caricature. The first rule of comedy should be that the more seriously the characters take their predicaments, the funnier they are. The more performers start winking at the audience and elbowing us in the ribs, the less we care about them or what they face and the more mechanical they seem. Watching a machine isn’t funny.

That’s what did La vie parisienne in. The operetta’s most satirical moments come when the servants pretending to be aristocrats skewer the vulgarity and coarseness of high society. Word was put out that this production was not for the kiddies. But halfway through, in the scene where the servants present themselves as Madames de Carte Blanche, Bête Noire, and Cause Célèbre and the Marquise de la Pied à Terre (the wittiest part of the translation was actually in French!), the self-conscious playacting, the pretense of naughtiness, wouldn’t have shocked a high-school principal. Look, ma, I’m lifting up my skirts and doing a can-can! Everything grew broader and heavier when it should have gotten more buoyant and high-spirited. And more real. That’s the payoff in Offenbach. This production went in the opposite direction.

The attractive cast consisted largely of Boston regulars who deserve to be seen in leading roles more often. Tenor Frank Kelley and baritone Aaron Engebreth made dashing romantic rivals. Light tenor Charles Blandy had fun with the composite role of the "Brazilian" (several different parts usually performed by a single comedian). African-American baritone Robert Honeysucker made an endearing Swedish baron, though perhaps he was not as uninhibitedly horny as the role required. His Swedish accent occasionally veered from the sing-song stereotype, but he was in excellent voice. New York City Opera soprano Jennifer Aylmer camped it up as a coquettish glove seller. And there were effective if broad performances by Rhode Island’s Kathryne Jennings as the Baroness and Emily Browder, Nicholas Nackley, David Cushing, David Jarratt, Christina Nadir Figueroa, and Daniel Kamalic as various servants.

At the center of everyone’s attention, though, was mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller as the questionable object of affection of the two rivals (and others). A woman of easy virtue, she’s the one who is all too aware (in the opera’s best aria) of the way glamor disappears the morning after. Elegant, witty, with a rich voice and great stage presence, Fuller got almost everything right, including the style. Her occasional sliding out of tune compromised an otherwise admirable performance.

LAST SUNDAY was a doubleheader for the Wyner family, but Susan Davenny Wyner and her New England String Ensemble fared better than composer Yehudi Wyner. His On This Most Voluptuous Night (1982), a moving and witty setting of five William Carlos Williams poems about love and mortality and art, got a beautiful reading from David Hoose and the players of Collage New Music but not a very satisfying one from soprano Ilana Davidson. Her pretty voice was a little small for the great variety of this piece. With her head buried in the score, she connected only with a couple of the teasing punch lines and with none of the music’s complexity or depth.

But Susan Davenny Wyner was in the major leagues. Her well-played and eloquently sculpted performances of major minor Mozart (the early Divertimento in F, K.138), Mahler (a floating, undulating Adagietto from Symphony No. 5), and Dvorák (the Serenade in E) were capped by Benjamin Britten’s last vocal work, Phaedra, which uses Robert Lowell’s translation of Racine’s tragedy about the obsession of Theseus’s queen with his son Hippolytos. Mezzo-soprano Janna Baty has made a career of playing sexually obsessed royalty. She sang with majesty, verbal nuance (including perfect diction), emotional fullness, erotic charge, and a glorious outpouring gilded tone. The steam from her performance must still be rising over Jordan Hall. And later that night (early in the morning, actually), just as he had the night Tomsic played, David Ortiz kept the Sox going with an extra-inning walk-off two-run homer. Major — definitely major.