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"The Outlaw and the King" has been an opera in progress.

Nearly two years ago, Act I premiered at the Scare Recital hall on the Douglass College campus at Rutgers University. Act II, which was still being written, was presented on Monday night, Dec. 1 at the Nicholas Music Center, Rutgers.

"The Outlaw and the King" is the collaboration of a pair of accidental neighbors from Roosevelt: Mark Zuckerman, composer, and David Stern Herrstrom, librettist and poet. Zuckerman and Herrstrom lived across the street from each other and had discussed projects on which they could get together. Zuckerman originally suggested Chekhov's "A Marriage Proposal" but Herrstrom nixed that idea in favor of his favorite story since childhood: the drama of David and Saul. Herrstrom in fact was named for King David, and as a boy he used to stage David-and-Saul dramas among his friends.

Roosevelt is a small town populated mainly by a wide variety of performing artists and fine artisans. Zuckerman, a saxaphonist and singer, holds a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University, where he has also taught. Herrstrom, a poet, public speaker, and vice president of Citigroup in New York, holds a Ph.D. in English literature from New York University.

"The Outlaw and the King" was lushly tonal, by appropriate turns lyric and dramatic. Saul, the first king of Israel, is tortured by prophecies of vanquishment by his son-in-law David; prophesies sung by a mystical trio-voiced oracle named Hannagail who only Saul (and later, David) can hear. Whereas the Tanakh portrays Saul as a villain, "Outlaw" bravely explores the possibility that Saul, thrust into a position of royalty he never sought, is justifiably rattled into discord by the politics and predictions that forcibly surround him.

We meet two other characters: Jonathan, son of Saul and best friend of David; and Zerubbabel, Saul's protective weapons-bearer. David's deep love for Saul and Jonathan is sorely tested as he listens uneasily to Hannagail's prophecies in his favor. Yet, as uncomfortable as he is (Why is it meant for me to destroy whom I love?"), he declares Hannagail "The Decider" in chilling present-day political parlance, and ultimately follows all she dictates. David wears many hats: musician, friend, lover, shepherd, warrior, king-elect. Zuckerman and Herrstrom manage to give David ample room to grow in as many directions without striating the character. For dramatic counterpoint, Zuckerman and Herrstrom give us opposite extremes in the characters of Jonathan, unconditionally supportive of David; and Zerubbabel, ever-suspicious of David.

Scriptural references abound for the bibliophile listener, including a risqué double-entendre from Psalm 23 about David's and Jonathan's romantic pursuits; and especially David's lament "How the mighty have fallen," (II Samuel 1:19-27). In the style of an African-American spiritual, David approaches the opera's denouement with a haunting "Woke Up This Morning" soliloquy about Saul and Jonathan.

Cast members, in order of appearance, included David Arnold as Saul; Brian Vandenberge as David; John-Andrew Fernandez as Zerubbabel; Matthew Morris as Jonathan; and Angela Bianca Beaton, Adrienne Alexander and Barbara Mergelsberg as the Hannagail trio. The performance took place in concert opera setting, without staged movement. Zuckerman and Herrstrom attained funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge and the Edward T. Cone Foundations, under the auspices of the Roosevelt Arts Project (RAP) with the support and cooperation of the Rutgers University Department of Music, to complete the second act. Andrew Cyr conducted a chamber orchestra of woodwinds, French horn, harp, and percussion. Judith Nicosia served the production as music coordinator. For more detals, go to www.mazicmusic.com.

Zuckerman will give a presentation Feb. 7 on his Yiddish choral arrangements at Roosevelt Borough Hall as part of the Roosevelt Arts Project series, where he will talk about Jewish influences on his music. The event is title "In Search of Yiddishkeit: A Local Composer's Musical Odyssey of Jewish Exploration and Self-Discovery."