A location inspired the show.

Last summer, when Elizabeth Bond visited the newly renovated historic 1903 El Paso County Courthouse, inside the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, all she could hear were the sounds of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s comedic operetta “Trial by Jury.”

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This summer, the music won’t just be in her head. The courtroom will be filled with the sounds of professional opera singers from around the Pikes Peak region, Colorado and London, including Bond, performing the famous 1875 operetta, as well as pieces from other Gilbert and Sullivan favorites: “The Mikado,” “The Pirates of Penzance” and H.M.S. Pinafore.

“Comedic Opera: ‘Trial By Jury’ and other Gilbert & Sullivan Favorites” is Saturday at the Pioneers Museum.

“I just love we’re doing it in a Victorian courtroom on the 150th anniversary of the operetta,” Bond said. “It’s familiar music, very family-friendly. ‘Trial by Jury’ is a bit naughty in a Victorian way, but fine for kids. They’ll laugh at the silliness.”

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In the operetta, a woman sues a cad for breaking his promise to marry her, but the defendant argues it’s not fair to punish him for loving one woman one day and another the next. He offers to marry both women, but is rejected due to bigamy. When he claims he’s a drunkard who doesn’t treat women right when he’s under the influence and therefore not worth marrying, the judge suggests they get him drunk and see what happens.

Featured soloists include Judeth Shay Comstock, Katherine Johnson, Eapen Leubner, Dante Mireles and Jim Sena. Bond also is bringing in conductor and world-renowned organist Derek Carden and stage director and bass-baritone Leon Berger from London. About half a dozen musicians will accompany the singers.

“We’re going for wacky, not traditional,” Bond said. “It will be very funny, lots of sideline jokes, but the music will still be pure. Sung the way Gilbert and Sullivan wanted it sung.”

Bond, a longtime opera singer and actor, has starred in dozens of operas around the world, including three years in the role of Madamy Giry in the London company of “The Phantom of the Opera” at Her Majesty’s Theatre. She was also in the 2007 film “The Bourne Ultimatum,” two Harry Potter films and other movies, commercials and TV shows.

“If you perform in opera you feel like you’ve played football or four quarters of a game. It’s a lot,” she said. “But I love singing (Giuseppe) Verdi operas, those are high-energy. I was always a gypsy or a witch or a boy. I’m mezzo soprano, so it was a trouser role. The idea is they play a boy, and the boy’s voice hasn’t changed yet. So a 50-year-old woman being a 15-year-old boy in ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’”

Contact the writer: 636-0270