The hounds of ‘Lammermoor’

They’re not staying at the Chateau Marmutt, but they are being treated with kid gloves. They are Guardian, Adonis, Caesar, Spirit, Banshee and La Femme Nikita (Nikki for short), the six Irish wolfhounds that recently made their debut in Los Angeles Opera’s production of “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

“They’re all related,” says the pack’s owner, Cheryl Riggs. “I call them my gentle giants.”

The dogs, which collectively weigh nearly half a ton, have five more performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Overseeing them each night is Riggs, who breeds and trains the champion hounds -- which can cost $2,500 per puppy -- at her ranch in Phelan, Calif.

She watches over them onstage too, dressed as a man in a broad-brimmed hat, long cape and fake mustache.

They get a certain amount of star treatment -- although their dressing rooms are more like, well, wire cages. But big ones.

Before each show, they have their spa treatment: a bath, brushing and er ... “peticure.” They have to have their nails specially cut, Riggs said, to navigate the wooden stage floor.

Riggs also keeps an eye on their diet -- although not for weight-control reasons.

The brindle-, wheaton- and luxe gray-colored dogs eat their chicken and rice-based victuals only after an appearance. They take their meals in their mobile home, a giant truck with built-in wrought-iron compartments.

Awaiting their cues as the curtain rises, the dogs pant heavily, a canine symphony. But it’s not stage fright.

“That’s how they cool off,” Riggs explains. “The hard part is getting them not to be nervous. That’s what beef jerky is for.”

In addition, the dogs are braced, or harnessed, in male-female pairs, because, Riggs points out, “two males will fight.”

When the cue comes, Riggs traverses the 80-foot stage amid a bank of fog with Guardian and Nikki. It takes only 10 seconds. The four other dogs make their appearance shortly thereafter, standing guard with two members of the chorus.

It’s Kirk Graves, L.A. Opera’s properties coordinator, who chases down the company’s zoological needs, be they horses, doves, martial eagles or man’s best friend.

He snagged the toy poodle that Franco Zeffirelli trotted out for his 1996 “Pagliacci.” He also barked up Riggs’ tree in 1999, when two Irish wolfhounds were needed for that season’s “Lucia.”

For this staging -- Marthe Keller’s first directorial effort for L.A. Opera -- Graves called Riggs, again looking to cast half a dozen hounds with soulful brown eyes and sweet shaggy looks.

“We get mostly purebreds, because they’re trained to ignore sounds,” Graves said. “To a dog, opera is 100 people yelling at you in Italian.”

But Riggs’ hounds seem to appreciate the talents of their human costars.

“They seem to like opera music,” she says. “I haven’t heard them howling yet.”

-- Victoria Looseleaf