Like opera itself, most opera houses are big. Then there is the Florence Gould Theater, in the basement of San Francisco's Legion of Honor. It seats 300 (against the War Memorial's 3,000), with a bare-bones stage of 25 feet by 21 feet (the Opera House stage is 134 feet wide, 84 feet deep).
Built in 1924, eight years before Tosca inaugurated the War Memorial, the Gould — a round, white structure, by chance an opulent, but postage-stamp version of Berlin's Komische Oper — serves well Donald Pippin's Pocket Opera and that company's brilliant miniatures.
But now, in this Louis XVI-style jewel box, something big and daring and quite wonderful is taking place: the San Francisco Lyric Opera's youthful, talented, and very big romp of Carmen, with a cast of 50.
Everybody likes spectacle, but there's something just as satisfying about opera done on a shoestring. To witness the old Garland-Rooney theatrical passion applied to this most intricate of art forms can warm the heart.
The San Francisco Lyric Opera, which unveiled a thoroughly enjoyable new production of Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" over the weekend, boasts precisely that sort of can-do enthusiasm. Under the guidance of conductor and artistic director Barnaby Palmer, the company offers economy-scale opera while keeping the musical values high.
