When "Florencia en el Amazonas" was produced in Seattle seven years ago, it captured enough attention that operagoers deluged Seattle Opera with requests for its return.

"Florencia" fans got their wish this past weekend, in a production that surpasses the 1998 Seattle premiere in many respects. Visually stunning, with new choreography and spectacular aerial effects, the show also has solid musical values and some imposing new talent.

None of the seven singers, in fact, are returnees from the first Seattle "Florencia" — though the conductor, producer (Francesca Zambello) and lighting designer (Paul Pyant) are. Robert Israel's ingenious riverboat set, built by Seattle Opera, works as well as ever.

Stage director Andrew Morton let the audience's imaginations soar along with the gasp-inducing aerial effects. More intimate scenes were nicely balanced, full of nuances that tell us about a young couple on the verge of romance and a middle-age couple whose marriage has soured.

Choreographer Daniel Pelzig added to the compelling visual elements of the show, with five dancers whose liquid, sensuous movements perfectly suggest the spirit of the great river. The dancers — Jaime Waliczek, Eric Esteb, Rickey Klein, Maika Misumi and Erricka S. Turner — were major contributors to the opera's pervasive sense of magic. So was the chorus, prepared by Beth Kirchhoff, and deployed not just offstage but actually behind the side box seats, in a most effective surround-sound effect.

Vjekoslav Sutej led the orchestra in this shimmering, romantic score, surging onward with a sure hand, and only occasionally overpowering the singers.

Nancy Gustafson was the opening-night Florencia (she alternates with Wendy Hill, who sings Friday and Sunday performances). Gustafson has her own conception of this central figure. Florencia, traveling incognito on the riverboat to reopen the opera house at Manaus, hopes to find her old lover, whom she has not seen in 20 years because she has been caught up in her own international fame.

Gustafson gave an honest, compelling performance, free of diva theatrics and full of poignant, probing insecurities. The role suits her voice, which rises to passionate recollections of her old romance, and falls to a near-whisper after a storm nearly destroys the riverboat and its passengers.

Omnipresent in this production is the magical figure of Ríolobo, who comments on the characters, calms the river and causes many of the opera's transformative moments. Nathan Gunn is a show-stealing success in this role, gripping the listener from the opening scene to the finale. He looks great, sounds great and has an elemental charisma that makes the audience believe fully in magic.

As Arcadio, Lawrence Brownlee displays the lovely voice that already has gotten this young singer contracts with Milan's La Scala Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic and London's Royal Opera Covent Garden, among many other leading companies. Brownlee's beautiful timbre and refined, elegant phrasing have both grown in assurance since his last performance here.

Frances Lucey sings Rosalba, the young woman falling in love with Arcadio, with an attractive soprano that sounded a bit too hard-pressed in the top register (it's a very high-lying role). Luiz-Ottavio Faria strikes just the right note as the Captain.

Luretta Bybee and D'Arcy Bleiker have the somewhat harder task of making the middle-age sparring spouses, Paula and Alvaro, seem both real and sympathetic. Somehow they manage this, injecting a rare note of humor in the show without descending to caricature. Bybee's crucial aria, in which she calls to her husband after he has been swept overboard, was particularly fine.

While I still have some doubts about Marcela Fuentes-Berain's rather repetitious libretto (translated for the English captions by Patricia Houk), "Florencia en el Amazonas" impressed me more last weekend than it did seven years ago. Is this because the music sounds better upon second hearing, or because the conductor and orchestra were able to build upon past success — or because of changes in the cast? With so many variables, it's hard to tell, but it's also clear that this is an opera that works. And judging from all those requests for a Seattle Opera repeat production, this is an opinion that is widely shared.

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com