It was French novelist Collette, whose 1945 book “Gigi” inspired an Oscar-winning film and later a Broadway musical, who famously said: “There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion.”

There’s the story of Gigi in a nutshell. Or should I say a noisette?

Gigi at the Lyric.

^{Courtesy kjphotography.com}

Even when beautiful, insouciant young Gigi fears for the fate of her romance with the dashing (if unfuriatingly smug) Gaston Lachailles, we know that love, in all its wide-eyed splendor, will win out. Gigi’s charmed, turn-of-the-century life in Paris wouldn’t have it any other way. It was so for Leslie Caron in the 1958 musical film. It was so for the now-forgotten Karin Wolfe in the 1973 Broadway debut. And it’s so for Laura Bueno, who plays the title role in the Lyric at the Birch’s 32^nd-season-opening production of “Gigi,” its fifth in the North Park Theater.

Because Gigi’s ultimate happiness is a conclusion foregone from practically the raising of the curtain, this is a show largely lacking in dramatic tension. The budding love affair between the sweet, unsophisticated gamin and the aristocratic love-‘em-and-leave’em specialist Gaston is cute and airy but never very passionate, and their arguments and/or misunderstandings feel as fluffy as the French pastry in the neighborhood boulangerie. The stage musical, like the better-known film that preceded it, is, with apologies to French grammarians, “tout sweet.” There’s just enough wry, good-natured philosophizing from the silver-haired Honore Lachailles, and just enough memorable tunes from Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (“Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” “The Night They Invented Champagne,” “I Remember It Well” and the title song) to keep us from sinking in saccharine.

It’s been 20 years since “Gigi” was staged in San Diego – or so director Leon Natker, who’s also general director at Lyric at the Birch, told the audience before the show on opening night Friday. This production, which runs through Oct. 3, is likable entertainment, two and a half hours of bon mots, period costumes (Gay Paree, circa 1901) and Can-Can dancers, who in the “At Maxim’s” number even cartwheel across the North Park Theater stage. Granted, the acoustics in the house occasionally betrayed the actors during speaking (non-singing) moments, and the show’s second act drags (in particular the drawn out negotiation of Gigi’s hand, “The Contract”). The finale, ironically, feels hurried and flat.

But Bueno, last seen at the Birch in “A Little Night Music” earlier this year, boasts an appealing crystalline voice, heard notably on the solos “The Earth and Other Minor Things” and “In This Wide, Wide World.” She’s also deft enough to pull off the “My Fair Lady”-like metamorphosis from girl into woman minus self-consciousness.

As Gigi’s lover, Gaston, Benjamin Robinson postures and sniffs the air more than we require, and doesn’t really get to show off his own voice until the performance of the title song, which is the best of the second-act numbers by far. Only then do we sense any depth of feeling in his heart for the girl he previously amused by playing cards with and teasing with champagne.

Naturally the most visible role in “Gigi” is that of Honore Lachailles, immortalized in the ’58 film by Maurice Chevalier. At the Birch, the suave J. Sherwood Montgomery gives the part his all, and inevitably was the audience favorite on opening night. He’s no Chevalier, but who is, and he can’t be faulted for that. The blocking of the show could be faulted, though, for plopping him down at a table to the right of the stage during several musical numbers when it would have been more fun to see him on his feet and flashing his well-honed devil-may-care.

Any appearance by the dauntless Leigh Scarritt in a local production is worth mentioning, and her Aunt Alicia, a case of Marie Antoinette mixed with one of the Gabor sisters, is hilarious even in its overindulgence. She’s a guaranteed laugh-getter.

The orchestra is game and the sets adequate if unspectacular, but the choreography by Shirley Giltner enlivens numerous points during the show, whether out front or behind the action. And her ensemble is up to the challenge.

Was Paris ever like this, even in 1901? Perhaps only Collette knows for sure, and she’s not around to tell us. Doesn’t matter. Drink enough champagne, devour enough beignets and you won’t care.