Jason Howard and Lauren Flanigan in the 2003 Seattle Opera production of Mourning Becomes Electra. Photo by Rozarii Lynch

For sheer emotional extravagance and a vivid representation of the inexorability of fate, nothing quite beats a good Greek tragedy.

Eugene O’Neill understood this, which is why in 1931 he offered to the public his massive three-part play, “Mourning Becomes Electra,” a treatment of the Oresteia plays of Aeschylus updated to New England at the end of the Civil War.

And Marvin David Levy certainly understood this, which is why in 1967, the Metropolitan Opera presented his opera based on the O’Neill play, a searing work that was widely acclaimed at the time but which has had only a handful of productions — in Chicago, Seattle and New York — since that debut. Tomorrow night, however, Florida Grand Opera opens its new season with only the fifth-ever production of “Mourning Becomes Electra,” and it promises to be a most auspicious evening in the theater.

“Down here, they haven’t heard anything vaguely contemporary in years, so it’s going to be a surprise for them,” Levy said.

Marvin David Levy, at home in Ft. Lauderdale. Photo by Greg Stepanich

The opera tracks the cursed Mannon family, whose tragedies begin when Christine, wife of patriarch Gen. Ezra Mannon, poisons him to be with Adam Brant, the suitor of Lavinia, their daughter. Lavinia learns this from her father’s dying breath, and vows revenge, calling on her brother, Orin, to help. The music has the expressionistic power of Berg, but Levy’s music is perhaps more direct.

Levy said he recast the work in 1998 for its production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

“The major revisions to ‘Mourning,’ musically speaking, came with the Chicago performances, because there I took the piece apart and really wrote what I should have written at the beginning, which is much more lyrical,” Levy said.

Florida Grand Opera’s cast includes soprano Lauren Flanigan as Christine, reprising a role she has sung many times (“She’s dynamite on stage,” Levy says). Lavinia is sung by the Canadian soprano Rayanne Dupuis, and the object of both their affections, Adam Brant, is sung by baritone Morgan Smith, just visible last week on local PBS stations as Starbuck in Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick.

Keith Phares sings Orin, and FGO stalwart Kevin Langan takes the role of Ezra. The roles of Helen Niles and Peter Niles are sung by Riley Svatos and Carlton Ford, while Nelson Martinez sings Jed. The stage direction is by the young American Kevin Newbury, who did Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette” for Palm Beach Opera two seasons back, and Ramon Tebar conducts the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra and chorus.

Because Levy is a longtime resident of Ft. Lauderdale, FGO will reverse its usual practice and open at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts for two performances before finishing its run at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami, where it will present “Mourning” four times.

American opera is an unusual animal in that the popular form of the American musical comedy, itself derived from Viennese operetta, has tended to drown out the contributions of American composers in the through-composed form of grand opera. But the United States has a large repertoire of indigenous opera, and the FGO production firmly recognizes that, and has done American musical art a service by bringing this work back to the repertory.

Tickets for “Mourning Becomes Electra” start at $19. Call 800-741-1010 or visit www.fgo.org.