Opera Santa Barbara (OSB) has settled into the pattern of presenting a few operas each season at the Lobero Theatre, with generally impressive results. ‘Elizabeth Cree’ | Photo: Phil ChanningOnce again, the operatic stars aligned last week — with performances at The Granada Theatre on Friday night and Sunday afternoon — for the MAW moment at the opera, with an important point of distinction. Whereas the repertorial choice often veers, naturally for an educational facility, to standard operatic fare, the focus this time around was a contemporary American opera, Kevin Puts’s 2017 one-act Elizabeth Cree. ‘Elizabeth Cree’ | Photo: Phil ChanningThe anti-heroic Elizabeth Cree (sensitively embodied in the magnetic performance of mezzo-soprano Ashlyn Brown) is an unreliable narrator in the tale. With Elizabeth Cree, MAW has once again triumphed in its ongoing mission to bring serious — and in this case, seriously satirical — opera to what would be otherwise be a mid-summer lull.