WASHINGTON, D.C. >> The story of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy got an intriguing retelling in “Better Gods,” a short opera that premiered Friday night at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

Luna Pearl Woolf’s ambitious setting of a tight, precise libretto by Caitlin Vincent takes the audience back 90 years to an episode shocking for its cruel audacity — forcing a leader, Queen Liliuokalani, to give up her throne to save not her own life, but those of her supporters. “My crown or my soul,” the queen, portrayed admirably by mezzo soprano Daryl Freedman, sings in despair.

Opera has a way of bringing in the extraneous: A character is created simply because the composer wanted to write an aria for a favorite singer. The death scene lingers for the soprano, going out in a blaze of vocal glory, simply so the composer can show his stuff.

“Better Gods” doesn’t have any of that because the project — restricted to about an hour by the commissioner, the Washington National Opera — wouldn’t allow for it. But the story that it tells also doesn’t call for it either. After all, the queen, after her forced abdication in 1895, was imprisoned but not brutalized, and lived in peace until her death in 1917. The overthrow itself was bloodless, and most of us enjoy the fruits of American statehood now.

Thankfully, the writers of “Better Gods” did not try to force any extra drama into the story; instead, there is a lot of cultural content. The story simply relates how the queen, upset at how her brother, King Kalakaua, was forced to sign away his powers in the Bayonet Constitution, tries to install a new constitution to give more power to Hawaiian people. This triggers the overthrow by American-backed businessmen and political interests, as represented in the opera by the egotistical, pompous Lorrin Thurston. Played nicely by tenor Rexford Tester, who boisterously sings, “People will thank me some day” for bringing the “better gods” of “railroads” (light rail, anyone?) and “the stars and stripes of America.”

A journalist, James Miller (Hunter Enoch), who is a composite of several historical figures, then interviews both sides. At first, he is convinced of Thurston’s good intentions, then he is shocked to find the queen is educated, charming and not at all ill-suited to rule her people.

While a knock at the media might be suggested here, it’s well-deserved. Newspapers back then “took sides” on the issue of the overthrow, many jingoistically supporting the overthrow. Miller’s character also perhaps serves as a representation of modern times. His shock reflects the fact that the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy remains a little-known chapter in American history, getting far less attention than slavery or the conquest of Native American tribes.

A final scene has the queen on trial for allegedly helping one of her supporters, the soldier Robert Wilcox (Wei Wu), lead a counterrevolution against the new provisional government. With dialogue drawn from history, it leaves one wishing this show trial could have a happy Hollywood ending in which the queen would have had the wherewithal to defeat her opponents and show them the error of their ways, global politics, economic development and the desire to “help” the “charming and simple” Hawaiian people, as Thurston calls them.

While this storyline suggests that “Better Gods” was mostly “park and bark” opera — i.e., performers just standing around and singing — there was some action on the stage. Woolf positioned WNO percussionist Greg Akagi on an onstage platform surrounded by traditional Hawaiian instruments, such as the ipu heke (double gourd) and the iliili (stone castanets), which he played with admirable dexterity. He was occasionally joined by Wu, as the soldier Wilcox, and their synchronized, dancelike snapping of the warrior sticks made for simple but decent theater, not unlike a taiko performance.

The real tension in “Better Gods” is in the characters’ relationships to each other, which was written into the music, not always to great success. To distinguish the ethnic Hawaiian characters — the queen, Wilcox, and the young maid Kahua, beautifully played by Ariana Wehr — Woolf created a harmony based on characteristics of the Hawaiian chant, incorporating the dips and rises of the ha‘i and the okina into a roughly atonal melodic line. The result was uneven—it seemed forced, the lines a bit too jagged in comparison to the intimacy of the words, although it was very effective in creating a separate language that ethnic Hawaiians would use among themselves as opposed to the language they would use with non-Hawaiians.

A more effective use of traditional Hawaiian vocalization were the lines of the “Kumulipo,” the Hawaiian chant of creation, that were sung between the opera’s three scenes. These lines were sung mostly using chant intonation, but rhythmically altered from what one might hear at a traditional performance. As such, they gave a pleasantly spiritual tone to the production, and when Liliuokalani sings that “the tide has come in, one day it will go out again,” one senses that she wants it to be in peace.

Woolf also incorporated some of the queen’s own songs. “Aloha Oe,” sung by the queen and Kahua, was given a lovely arrangement, and quotes from “The Queen’s Prayer” and “‘Onipa‘a” arise to provide lyrical, poignant moments. Representing the American intrusion into the affair are some jaunty bars from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which serve as an entree for Thurston’s showboating.

Audience reaction to Friday’s performance — tickets were sold out, but there were some empty seats, probably due to a cold snap in Washington, D.C. — was generous. It was apparent from the gasps and groans of the crowd that the story was affecting them, that they had learned something important about Hawaii — and about the United States. At a rehearsal, one young woman was seen crying.

James “Kimo” Gerald, a former Hawaii resident who has been living in New York for decades as a house manager at Carnegie Hall, came to the production and was impressed. Pointing to his heart, he said, “It moved me right here.”

Organizers are hoping to bring “Better Gods” to Hawaii in the next year or two. Although the opera is not easy on the ear, it tells an important story and shows the many shapes and forms opera can take.