I have a confession. I’ve been following the peripheral shenanigans coming out of Sochi – the security concerns and journalists’ hotel horror stories, funny Putin-in-triumph photos – with far more relish than I have the actual games. But when news of a one-night-only performance of “Tonya and Nancy: The Opera” hit my inbox a couple of weeks ago, even I felt flush with Olympic fever.

As the title suggests, this 2006 chamber opera sets the human drama of the famous, mid-nineties Olympic figure skating scandal to song. If you were born before 1985, I’m sure you remember the gist of the story — media coverage was wall-to-wall for weeks. Shortly before the 1994 Winter Olympics, one of the games’ odds-on favorites, Nancy Kerrigan, was clubbed in the leg with a metal baton after skating practice in an attack master-minded by the husband of another figure skating contender, Tonya Harding. The cast of stereotype-ready characters  are now shame-fame legend, but the story’s still relevant, all these years later, as a pop-culture parable about gender and competition, celebrity culture, achievement and class.

The opera’s libretto is adapted from a short story collection (“Celebrities in Disgrace”) by Elizabeth Searle and draws its text from interviews, courtroom reports and public statements given by Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding (played by Leah Reddy and Meredith Nielsen respectively).

“Tonya and Nancy: The Opera” is a presentation of Mixed Precipitation, the company behind those charming “picnic operettas” that pop up in Twin Cities community garden spaces in late summer. This barroom production promises to be high-camp fun, leavened by a bit of serious conversation from “a salon of presenters looking at art, scandal, censorship and athleticism.” In the hour preceding showtime, there will be a figure skating trivia contest and a viewing of the ladies’ long program in Sochi.

(L to R) Leah Reddy and Meredith Cain-Nielsen in “Tonya and Nancy: The Opera.” Photo: Ty Sassaman

“Tonya and Nancy: The Opera,” lyrics by Elizabeth Searle and music by Abigail Al-Doory Cross, is presented by Mixed Precipitation and directed by Scotty Reynolds, with music direction by Mike Meyer. The show is one night only, Thursday, February 20 at Amsterdam Bar and Hall, 6 W. 6th St., St. Paul. Tickets are $8-10; performance is at 7 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.). For more information on the company, visit mixedprecipitation.org.