THEATER REVIEW ‘THE KING AND I’ : Royal Romance : The classic musical is presented in opulent and culturally sensitive fashion by Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera.

“When two people are as different as we are, they can’t help but hurt each other.” With this simple, heartfelt admission from Norwood Smith as the King of Siam to his English governess, “The King and I” confronts the barriers that divide individuals, and by extension, nations. It’s a genuinely affecting moment from Rodgers and Hammerstein, and one that has aged well.

“The King and I” is a smart choice to open the Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera’s new season. It offers all the spectacle and lyrical romanticism on which the company has successfully based its popular appeal, and the production standards, as usual, are high. Few venues on the Central Coast could muster the resources to stage it with all the trimmings (including a 50-plus member cast, 10 opulent sets and a live 24-piece orchestra).

Plus, it’s a known quantity--the tuneful bickering between Anna, a prim Victorian governess, and the petulant monarch of Siam puts “The King and I” up there among the classic Broadway musicals of all time.

For all its familiarity, the experience is surprising and deeply affecting. But the element of surprise doesn’t come from the show but from the change in perspective the audience brings to the theater.

“The King and I” opened in 1951 with the United States comfortably perched atop the world order. The superiority of Western culture was so smugly axiomatic that the prospect of Asian nations vying for economic supremacy seemed as laughable as Yul Brynner’s quirky “etceteras.”

Nowadays, as we view the world through humbler multicultural lenses, it’s refreshing and more than a bit astonishing to see how forward-looking “King and I” was in dealing with the inevitable clash of cultures in a shrinking world. Beneath the lush show tunes and exotic locale, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s treatment is notable for a balanced perspective and respect for the complexities involved.

In the SBCLO production, Smith’s King is every inch the once-omnipotent ruler struggling to cope with the far-reaching consequences of contact with the international community (something he eloquently muses about in “A Puzzlement”). Worrying about being left behind as an uncivilized barbarian, but trying to preserve his social order, he finds himself in cultural free fall.

As a result, he clings in desperation to his absolute authority, but Catherine Dougher’s Anna proves a suitably plucky antagonist who refuses to kowtow. Still, she recognizes the difficulty of his struggle, and ultimately allies herself with him in sympathy for his tragically untenable position.

It’s not that the SBCLO production sets out to overemphasize these issues at the expense of entertaining its audience--this is still primarily escapist fare--but it has an effect on the performances and on the way we perceive them. The broken English spoken by the King and his countrymen, with all its bizarre distortions, seems less a source of amusement than an endearing dialect of an aspiring people.

And with today’s greater awareness of interracial relations, the unacknowledged romantic charge between the King and Anna floats closer to the surface, more poignant for its missed possibilities. Both are widowers at the same stage in life (the King having lost his favorite wife), and even though they’re too set in their ways to breach the gulf between them, they part in mutual affection.

Smith and Dougher are mature performers, which sharpens their contrast with the young Burmese Princess Tuptim (Jenny Nichols Larson) in the King’s harem and her forbidden paramour. For all its purity, the young lovers’ passion has the naive simplicity of Romeo and Juliet.

Larson, Dougher, and Mary Dombek (as the head wife in the King’s harem) bring classically trained voices to their roles, which makes this a musical worthy of the name.

The production isn’t always on the money with the emotional notes. Things get off to a shaky start when Anna and her son (Scott Brodie) fail to establish the apprehension about their alien surroundings that makes “I Whistle a Happy Tune” a hymn to courage rather than a ditty. And when Tuptim’s lover (Raymond Saar) sings to the audience instead of to her it cools the flames of passion considerably.

Despite some opening falters, the show gathers strength as it moves along, and by the second act we’re hooked. It hits its stride when director/choreographer Toni Kaye tries for more than a carbon copy of the original staging, particularly in the inventive ballet sequence for Tuptim’s staging of “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” (a Siamese version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”).

Add the professional voices and performances from the leads, and you’ve got yourself a Siamese treat.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“The King and I” will be performed through Oct. 20 at the Lobero Theatre at 33 E. Canon Perdido in Santa Barbara, Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., Sunday evenings at 7 p.m., and matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $9.75 to $26.00. For reservations or information, call (805) 963-0761.