Friday, October 28, 2005  Penance and Warfare  In the hallway
just off of the stage door of the San Francisco Opera is a
bulletin board for supernumeraries where you can sign in and
also get "notes" from the directorial staff on things to modify.
Grove got a note saying "Ron [the director] said to be more
subtle when you tell the chorus not to eat the soup."  "Have you
been an overacting thespian again?" I asked my fellow Friar and
he confessed to no more than "acting just a little bit, they
told me to."  Before the opera begins and between the large
crowd scenes, many people hang out in "The Basement Lounge."
It's a large, brightly-lit, rather dingy space...  ...that even
includes a ping pong table for fast and furious action.  The new
production of "La Forza del Destino," which is gearing up for
its opening next Wednesday, is both a simple and lavish
production, rather like the opera itself with its long, intimate
stretches for one or two characters onstage being bracketed by
scenes containing over a hund