Two young women, both raised in Napa, who only just recently met and discovered their common backgrounds, will share the stage “back home” as part of the cast of Berkeley Opera’s “The Elixir of Love,” which comes to Lincoln Theater in Yountville April 27

Both Angela Cadelago and Patricia Prewitt attended Napa schools, were involved in music and performing arts, and even shared some voice teachers. They went on to study music in college and earn advanced degrees. Now, both in their mid-20s, their paths crossed while rehearsing for Gaetano Donizetti’s opera.

The Berkeley Opera, now in its 28th season of presenting lively, compelling traditional musical theater, has performed 82 operas by 38 different composers. In “The Elixir of Love” a shy young man with nothing to his name falls in love with a rich and beautiful woman. Will a con artist’s “magic elixir” be enough to win her affections? Or will true love need to work its magic?

The opera is performed in Italian with English supertitles. “The opera is not only full of fun, it is a feast of melody,” said Napa musicologist Dr. James Keolker. “Donizetti wrote in the florid ‘bel canto’ style, meaning it is full of ‘blossoming’ melodies, like ‘bouquets’ for the ear.”

Angela Cadelago, who sings the lead role of the wealthy, refined Adina, is one of the voices delivering those auditory “bouquets.” Cadelago was born into a musical family: Her father, Harry, a music educator for more than 35 years, is well known as  Napa High School’s music director for both band and orchestra, and her mother has directed children’s choirs. Cadelago, 25, attended El Centro and Bel Air elementary schools, Redwood Middle School and Vintage High School before continuing on to San Francisco State University to earn a degree in music education.

“My musical training has its deepest and most significant roots in Napa, beginning with my parents’ strong influence, by example of their joy in music,” said Cadelago.

Cadelago said it took her eight years after college graduation to conclude that she wanted to pursue a career in opera, even if she should fail. “What began as something I did for fun, has become my life’s ambition,” she said, adding that her desire to pursue a career has grown with each small success and opportunity. “I’ve sung with many of the Bay Area’s local companies and joined the part-time, or ‘extra’ chorus, of the San Francisco Opera in 2001.

“Psychologically, the hardest work a young singer will do is to find a balanced way to live within the established system that is the opera business,” she added. “It’s also necessary to make the distinction between the very visceral and beautiful act of singing, and the unsympathetic nature of the singing business. And that the latter cannot be allowed to extinguish the joy of the former. I did not quite understand this dichotomy when I first graduated.”

 Music critic Janos Gereben has described Cadelago’s performance as Adina as “consistently wonderful — right notes, right phrasing, bright sound, good diction, and excellent acting of a role that requires a hard-to-believe transformation from flirty-mean to selflessly loving.”

Cadelago, he writes, “also has that ineffable quality that separates good from something better; she definitely has ‘it.’”

 Cadelago said the role of Adina is often portrayed as an archetype — the proud and hard-hearted coquette who shuns the affections of the pining Nemorino for no apparent reason. “I was quite averse to this interpretation, and have sought — within the confines of Donizetti’s score — to find ways of making her a believably vulnerable, and ultimately redeemable, human being.”

“I am extremely fortunate to sing Adina for the first time under the direction of Director Bobby Weinapple and Conductor Donato Cabrera,” she said. “Their pursuit is genuine in all of the characters in this opera, combined with a very long — luxurious — rehearsal schedule that allowed for the entire cast to go deeper with our interpretations and relationships with each other. This has created a real story for our audience, one they can understand and sympathize with, even if we are singing in Italian.”

Meanwhile, Patricia Prewitt, 26,  who plays an Italian townsperson in “Elixir” has also followed her musical dream. She attended Westwood Elementary School, Silverado Middle School and Napa High School. Ironically, Prewitt’s band teacher all the way through middle school and high school — and the man she cites as her biggest musical influence — was none other than Harry Cadelago.

 “I was raised singing and performing on stage,” Prewitt said. “I became involved with music through the Napa High band and with all of the Napa High choirs.” Prewitt attended Napa Valley College, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City and then graduated with a degree in English from UC Berkeley.

“I actually got into opera because I’d been told repeatedly that my voice is big and powerful. I thought I’d try opera and I absolutely love it,” she said. “My music career is just beginning.”

Keolker will lead an pre-performance discussion at 4 p.m., just before the Lincoln Theater presentation of  “Elixir of Love” April 27

Tickets are $20, $30, $40 and $50 contact the Lincoln Theater Box Office, 100 California Drive, Yountville by calling 944-1300 or by going to www.lincolntheater.org.

‘The Elixir of Love’

Sunday, April 27, 5 p.m.

Pre-preformance talk with Dr. James Koelker, 4 p.m.

Lincoln Theater,

Tickets: $20, $30, $40 and $50

Box office 944-1300 or www.lincolntheater.org.