A strong cast — the standouts included nOah [sic] Stewart, Miriam Murphy, Kiera Duffy, Frank Kelley, the highly promising Irish baritone Owen Gilhooly and, as Charlie, the gifted young treble Michael Kepler Meo — had its work cut out for it, as did the orchestra.

None of the evening’s musical weakness seemed ascribable to the cast, who gave everything their considerable all, with Kiera Duffy’s Violet Beauregard, Abigail Nims’s Veruca Salt and Miriam Murphy’s Mrs Gloop taking the vertiginous vocal demands in their stride.

Schoenberg’s greatly influential chamber work, “Pierrot Lunaire,” circa 1912, fascinates still. Tuesday’s visit confirmed its fresh appeal, as played with properly chilled panache by a sextet conducted by Stefan Asbury and featuring incisively expressive soprano Kiera Duffy. Whether limning melodies or exercising the composer’s signature semi-singing “Sprechstimme,” Duffy beautifully captured the magic, abandon and melancholy in Schoenberg’s 21 miniatures, from “Mondestrunken (`Moondrunk’)” to the final line “O, ancient scent from far-off days” — now somehow relevant to the venerable opus itself.