If the word “puppet” dominated postperformance debates following the Metropolitan Opera’s season opener “Madame Butterfly” — which featured director Anthony Minghella’s striking use of a Bunraku puppet to represent Butterfly’s son — then talk surrounding the Met’s new production of Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” which opens November 10, is bound to center on another “p” word: passerelle.

A passerelle is a sort of catwalk, and this mounting of the Rossini work — the second new offering of Peter Gelb’s inaugural season as general manager — features a wide, rectangular wooden one that surrounds the orchestra and extends the lip of the stage nearly 30 feet. It is constructed in such a way that one errant step could land the singers in the laps of the folks in row A.

The man responsible for this novel innovation — a Met first — is Bartlett Sher.

Mr. Sher is likely unfamiliar to Met subscribers — “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” marks his Met debut — but this production is not his first Lincoln Center job.

His was the sensitive guiding hand behind “The Light in the Piazza,” the ethereal, lush, Florence-set musical by Adam Geuttel and Craig Lucas that finished a surprisingly long run at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in July 2006. Along the way, it picked up six Tony Awards and a collection of diehard fans, including playwright Richard Greenberg, who checked in on the production with the regularity and passion of a churchgoer, and Mr. Gelb, who was tipped off by a friend to the operatic grace of the piece. Impressed by what he saw, Mr. Gelb offered Mr. Sher “Barbiere,” which was already part of the 2006–07 schedule, but in need of a director. “I think they felt I had a good enough grasp of Italian that somehow it would be OK,” Mr. Sher joked.

Mr. Sher — who, with his handsome face, wavy brown hair, and relaxed, West-Coast demeanor, is boyish even at 47 — rolls his eyes when asked whether he supports the reputation of “Piazza” as being just this side of opera. “It’s not even close,” he said without hesitation. “It’s a very straightahead musical, a very traditional musical. It’s a book and really good music. There’s nothing like people not stopping singing in another language to give you a strong sense of what an opera is.”

While Sir Rudolph Bing probably wouldn’t have described the art form as “people not stopping singing in another language,” it’s an apt choice of words for a relative opera novice like Mr. Sher, who has spent most of his career in the theater as the artistic director of the Intiman Theatre in Seattle and as the director of an occasional New York venture.

Mr. Sher accepted Mr. Gelb’s offer, of course — who wouldn’t want to direct at the Met, at least once? — but nerves soon set in. Early on, though, Mr. Sher saw a video of a “Barbiere” production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, who collaborated with James Levine on many Met productions. Ponnelle’s production hit a nerve with Mr. Sher. “That’s what helped me understand how great it was,” Mr. Sher said of the opera.”I tend to be a bit of a classicist in certain ways and a bit of an experimentalist in others, so I really go back and look at all the traditions and recordings, and I find the one that I respond to.”

For added comfort among his new environs and colleagues — which include Juan Diego Flórez as Count Almaviva; Diana Damrau and Joyce Di-Donato, who share the role of Rosina, and Peter Mattei as Figaro — Mr. Sher drafted his entire “The Light in the Piazza” design team: costume designer Catherine Zuber, set designer Michael Yeargan, and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind. Mr. Yeargan already had experience at the Met, which came in handy when the cagerattling concept of the passerelle popped into Mr. Sher’s playful mind.

“It seemed to me, talking to Michael Yeargan, that we could bring the cast down — way down — into the audience by building over the pit without being over any of the instruments,” Mr. Sher said.”You sort of treat every space as a site-specific art installation.”

The fact that “Barbiere” uses a small orchestra allowed the designer and director to more easily execute their vision. Since the orchestra doesn’t fill the whole pit, Messrs. Sher and Yeargan constructed the passerelle around the musicians. “This pit is specifically designed to not impact any of the bloom of the orchestra. The sound is as strong, but the physical relationship is completely changed,” Mr. Sher said. Then, shifting to the subscriber-soothing “change, but not too much change” message Mr. Gelb has made his mantra, he added, “I wouldn’t want to compromise the art form for the innovation.”

All told, the passerelle is used five or six times during the production, and Mr. Sher would prefer to keep those instances a secret in hopes of startling the penguins and grand dames up front. He will, however, hint at other coups de theatre, such as an off-stage explosion, an easily toppled tree, and a deus ex machina anvil.

But Mr. Sher’s impish antics aren’t simply an onstage expression of his whimsical vision. A true child of the theater, he cites the opera’s source material — Beaumarchais’s 1775 play “Le Barbier de Seville” — in his defense. “Beaumarchais was a major revolutionary writer,” he said. “So I think it’s kind of perfect to do something a little revolutionary at the Met with this kind of material.”