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While Noah and family were constructing their ark last week, a crew of ballet dancers in goggles and aprons was busy on a Boston stage, pounding together a Victorian-styled spaceship for a nostalgic trip to the moon. The occasion: the U.S. premiere of Jacques Offenbach's minor operetta Voyage to the Moon, based on Jules Verne's yarn. First performed in Paris in 1875, Offenbach's Voyage caused a momentary sensation among premature space bugs, then disappeared from the repertory and has rarely been seen since. The story, as revived by the newly formed Boston Opera Group, concerns one Prince Caprice of the Kingdom of Flambeau, who persuades the nation's top scientist, Dr. Blastoff, to design him a moon rocket with plushy upholstery, an anchor at its stern, gaily-blinking lights and signal flags. This vehicle was trundled off the Boston Public Garden's stage last week and sent moonward with a bang, a yellow flash and an ominous puff of smoke. From there on, with the help of a first-rate cast (Tenors Norman Kelley and David Lloyd, Bass Baritone Donald Gramm, Sopranos Adelaide Bishop and Lorena Spence), the opera worked its way to the moon and back, picking up a Purple People Eater as it went along.