Not much disturbs the disciplined self-control of the title (and only) character in “Ivonne,” the taut and ravishing chamber opera by composerNathaniel Stookeyand librettist Jerre Dye. She likes order — this is the first thing she tells us about herself — and she has a carefully economical routine for applying her lipstick, thanks to which she can make a single tube last two years.

But of course life has other plans. The crisis for Ivonne, who works as the imperious head of the steno pool in a 1960s-era Memphis business, comes when a co-worker’s miscarriage in the ladies’ room brings her — just briefly — into contact with her own untapped wells of tenderness.

It’s a perfectly scaled climax for this 20-minute monodrama, a vividly etched short story that never sets a foot wrong. And as embodied with a blend of iciness and sympathy by soprano Marnie Breckenridge, Ivonne emerges instantly as a vibrant theatrical persona.

“Ivonne” was the high point in the latest installment ofSnapshot,the annual sampler of new operas presented by West Edge Opera. During a vibrant performance on Saturday, Jan. 19, in Berkeley’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge 270, Stookey’s score — featuring the delicate strains of a piano trio as accompaniment and ably conducted by Mary Chun — created a tableau of elegant poise rocked by the unexpected.

“两种”的整体戏剧作法是canny as its expressive detail. The piece is in three discrete scenes, each one informed by Ivonne’s brand choices in cosmetics and clothing. We see her makeup routine and grasp instantly — without being hectored — its connection to her personality. A bustling instrumental fugue depicts the office and her place in it (as told by herself, perhaps not entirely reliably).

That’s all the setup a listener needs to grasp the weight of the piece’s haunting conclusion, and Stookey’s writing — suddenly slower and more intimate — renders it with a combination of poignancy and tact. It’s a marvelous achievement.

If none of the other three works on the program rose to that level, there were still pleasures to be had throughout. Excerpts from “Zheng,” a work in progress by composer Shinji Eshima and librettist Tony Asaro about the life and work of the late mezzo-sopranoZheng Cao, conveyed much of the ferocity and dogged spirit of its subject.

Cao, who died of lung cancer in 2013 at 46, was both a gifted artist and an individual of unstoppable personal power, and those qualities came through in the scenes performed Saturday under the baton of conductor Jonathan Khuner. They included duets with her sister and her doctor/fiance, but most tellingly a final stirring paean to the force of her own singing.

“The Road to Xibalba,” an adaptation of a legend from the Popul Vuh by composer Cindy Cox and librettist John Campion, was hard to assess based on a few excerpted scenes; the piece’s most telling aspects were the vivid instrumental textures, adorned by various sampled sounds, and the lustrous singing of soprano Amy Foote as the pregnant protagonist Little Blood. “Medicus Mortem,” a short Faustian fable about euthanasia by composer Beth Ratay and librettist Andrew Rechnitz, completed the program.

Snapshot:3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20. $40. Taube Atrium Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 510-841-1903.www.westedgeopera.com