The Florence Gould Theater

This is a beautiful and intimate venue for chamber music concerts. The accoustics are pretty good, so there aren't any bad seats in the house. I do prefer to sit a bit closer to the stage though so I can see the musicians. The seats are old and a bit creaky, but the decor and architecture are second to none. The ceiling has a nice floral garden motif. I like visiting every couple of months to catch a concert. It's not super crowded usually, which makes it nice.

In urgent need of refurbishment. Feels worn, dated, cold, etc.

Ushers somehow don't feel it's necessary to keep people from entering during performances, which is highly distracting (and I've seen this happening more than once, too).

Acoustics OK. Biggest draw is free entrance into the Legion of Honor after performances here. Box office is non-existent, just a table by the entrance of the museum on performance days. That way, you always end up paying those lovely venue, checkout, processing and convenience fees, or whatever the hell they'll start calling it next.

Yes, divas, you can have it all!  

Your motorcade can sweep you up to a marble colonnaded palace on stately grounds, with our gorgeous Golden Gate looming off there to y our left, in the gloaming.  Fountains and sculpture, Rodins pondering your finery, all eyes watching you alight your carriage in the forecourt.

Your heels will click-clack on gleaming floors as you sweep past priceless art, perhaps to see Lucia di Lammermoor or a little something by Offenbach.  And when you arrive, cherie, you will take your place just a few meters from the stage, practically in the orchestra itself.  Your eyes will be soothed by rich red velvet curtains adorning a gleaming ivory jewelbox of a room, with a carved proscenium, and only the most tasteful and classic of decor.  Over your head, a magnificent Spanish mural in the most delicate and refined tones, Villa y Prades' charming Apotheosis of the California Soldier, from 1924.  Yes, mon petit biche, you can have it all, with 313 of your dearest opera-loving friends.

Well, at least up through December 2007 or so, cherie, for the opera.  After that you must make do with lectures and chamber music and the odd wedding, mon amour, for the opera, she is moving!  If you wish to have your opera you must go elsewhere, my dear.

What, you are confused?

Up through this winter, the Florence Gould Theater of the Palace of the Legion of Honor has been home to San Francisco's *second* professional opera company, the San Francisco Lyric Opera.   This 314 seat theatre, which seems perfect for such productions, will soon turn the company out in favor of lectures and who knows what else.   The management has roughly tripled rent for the facility for them next year, so the SFLO will relocate its productions to the Cowell Theater in Fort Mason, hard by Marina and Chrissie Field, in a slightly larger theater with more modern facilities.

The Gould has been a truly charming place for this company to date, however.  Every performance I've attended here has been sold out or nearly so, and what the theater lacks in backstage space and other accouterments for the company, it makes up for in sheer warmth.  Where War Memorial Opera House feels like a frumpy dowager, Gould is a little ballerina.

There is no bad seat in this little house, sightwise, and quel surprise, they are all comfortable too.  It's a little challenging to get to and if you want a little apres-opera nosh, well, there's Gaspari pizza.

Perhaps the Florence Gould is better suited to smaller concerts than moving scenery and mezzosopranos around on dollies, but I'll miss the slightly Old World charm of this place when SFLO moves across town.

Well, SFLO's loss is your gain--it means a dozen or so weekend nights when this venue is available for you to rent, mon amour.  The Florence Gould is available for events, just give them a call.

Oh--by the way--when I said "all eyes watching you alight your carriage..." I was referring to the usual welcoming squadrons of nonplussed raccoons who really own the parking lot here.  I would not recommend you leave the top down and a box of Jujy Fruits in your Bentley, milady.