San Francisco Opera Emptied Its Closets, and the Bay Area Lined Up

The Bay Area's finest shopping for a weekend was to be found in a Burlingame warehouse. The San Francisco Opera made its scene shop available October 17 and 18 in the first costume sale of this kind in over ten years, and it put out the best of what decades of productions have to offer: Victorian gowns, Renaissance doublets, embroidered uniforms for soldiers, capes, some 1920s frocks and a Bob Mackie white jumpsuit at $14,000. Saturday's tickets for timed entry were all gone. The proceeds are for a company with a $15 million structural deficit that saw September go by on the wrong side of an orchestra strike.

What Was on the Racks in Burlingame

Located at 826 Burlway Road a couple of blocks from the Bayshore, the Opera's Scene Shop is where the company has put together and put away the physical world of its productions. The company made the sale public on September 30 and started putting tickets up for sale the following day at 11 a.m. For an entry fee of between $5 and $25, depending on when one comes in, a ticket allows for two hours of browsing. Donors of the Intermezzo Silver level and higher were given a by-invitation preview and reception on Friday, October 16, with the public to be admitted from 9:30 the next morning.

What is on offer hails from such works as Luisa Miller, Un Ballo in Maschera, Idomeneo, Fidelio and Don Giovanni and the hands of designers including Thierry Bosquet, Carrie Robbins, Pet Halmen, Michael Stennett and Dunya Ramicova. The sale page called it "a rare opportunity to own authentic theatrical costumes drawn from decades of productions," with suggested occasions running the gamut from Halloween and Renaissance fairs to Gatsby soirees, weddings and cosplay. Prices are set from $5 to $525 for most items, with custom rates for the more premium pieces; the racks also have stage props and odd bits of opera merchandise. All proceeds from the fees and sales are for the company.

The Jumpsuit That Stole the Weekend

All eyes were on the white Pierrot clown costume with its over-the-top ruffled sleeves and black paillette button clusters. Bob Mackie made it for Eilana Lappalainen to wear in the 1998 company staging of Lulu and it was the talk of the room. The Opera put a $14,000 price tag on it, making it by far the costliest piece there and, to most in line, something to be photographed as opposed to purchased.

There was a certain poignancy to it given the timing. In September Mackie passed away at 87; the Hollywood designer had been responsible for the looks of Cher and Carol Burnett over the years. Hacks made much of a white sequined Mackie jumpsuit Burnett had on for her variety show's final episode in its last season, even having the designer make an appearance. And with a San Francisco warehouse in possession of one of his own white Mackie jumpsuits that same year, it was the sort of coincidence that is good for ticket sales.

How a Costume Sale Works When 180 People Fit at a Time

The rules at a scene shop are not those of a department store. The Burlingame building has a fire capacity of 180, so all entries were put on sale online and timed in advance; there was no room for walk-ups. Shoppers would make their way to the line at the appointed hour for a color-coded wristband and two hours' time. Being over 15 minutes late could mean being turned away. Sunday morning slots ran $10 and afternoons were $5, while by the start of the weekend the October 17 entries had all been taken. Kids six and older required a ticket of their own and some supervision given the delicate or breakable nature of much of the display.

At the public sale there were no fitting rooms, leaving buyers to hold up gowns between the racks and make an estimate. The transactions were cashless and "All sales final" as the page put it. With no inventory put aside for later, the company advised booking the earliest entry possible for first pick of the selection. Parking was available with accessible spots at the shop, but one had to go two blocks to 1499 Old Bayshore Highway. For a firm whose home is the War Memorial Opera House on Van Ness Avenue, the proceedings had the air of a well-dressed garage sale.

Why the Opera Needs the Money

The sale comes at the close of a difficult season. Back in September the Opera's orchestra struck once their contract ran out on July 31, putting an end to the opening night of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra on the 12th and the free Opera in the Park concert in Golden Gate Park the following day. Throughout the dispute the company put out statements of a "structural deficit of $15M that must be resolved" and attributed it to decades of inflation driving up costs ahead of revenue; it was a matter of cutting back and raising funds.

On September 17 word came of a tentative four-year deal to be put before the union for ratification by the musicians, one that will hold from August 1, 2026 to July 31, 2030. In a statement General Director Matthew Shilvock said the contract "addresses important structural changes while providing a fair agreement" for the musicians. "Most of all, we look forward to coming together again and reconnecting through the collective beauty of the arts," he added. A costume sale will not put a lid on a $15 million shortfall. The company holds them from time to time to clear the way for new productions, with the last being online. This time round there is a donor reception and the event is in person; it is indicative of how an institution of 103 years considers every asset under its control.

What Happens When Bay Area Arts Institutions Start Selling the Archive?

This will likely become a habit, and not just at the Opera. All the major performing arts companies in the Bay Area have warehouses full of costumes, props and sets that were expensive to put together and are no cheap matter to store. The sold-out weekend in Burlingame was proof enough: there is an audience willing to pay for the physical leftovers of a live show and they will make the drive to an industrial street on the Peninsula and stand in line for a two-hour slot to get at it. One can expect the Ballet, the Symphony and the regional theaters to give their own closets a good once-over before Halloween comes around next year, and the Opera will likely make this an annual affair instead of something seen once a decade. It is an old lesson for founders: an archive is inventory and inventory can be put up for sale.

But the concerns are no less real. A costume is history as well. When a Mackie jumpsuit from Lulu or a Bosquet gown leaves with a buyer, the company's record of what it staged and how is diminished. Pieces of that quality would normally end up in a museum or university collection, but at $14,000 they are within the grasp of private collectors who may never put them on display. Then there is the matter of whether a company short on cash should have staff attending to retail when those hours could be spent on fundraising for a much greater return. And the sale is a one-off remedy for a deficit that keeps coming back; you can only sell an item from the archive once.

In some ways the controversy is akin to the strike. In September the musicians took the view that management's solution to the deficit was to cut, while the Opera held that a 45-year-old compensation structure was no longer viable. Company critics will see the sale of a costume as an institution liquidating its past to make up for mismanagement of the present. Its supporters will call it the sort of inventive, community-facing revenue a modern arts body should be after and will point to the lines on Burlway Road as proof the public is interested.

There are concrete signs to keep an eye on. First is the ratification of the four-year contract and whether it holds; a second labor dispute would render any revenue from the costumes moot. Second is whether the Opera puts out the numbers on what the weekend brought in. A low six-figure sum would validate the approach, whereas silence would imply it was more about goodwill than hard cash. Third is whether other Bay Area companies decide to do the same, and how quickly. And fourth is the audience. Should the people who put down $5 to walk through the scene shop turn up at the Opera House this season, then the sale will have accomplished what sales seldom do and turned them into customers for the main event.

A Hidden Room on the Waterfront

While Sparknify devotes the better part of its efforts to the Bay Area's technology sector, the region's cultural infrastructure keeps turning up in our reporting, often in unassuming places one might otherwise walk by. In The Secret Screening Room on San Francisco's Waterfront, for instance, we wrote about a theater tucked into a triangular building on the Embarcadero, the venue where Robin Williams once watched his own footage and where our Human vs. AI Film Festival put to the test whether machines can move an audience the way a person can. The scene shop in Burlingame belongs in the same category: a working space the public never sees until it is thrown open for a weekend, full of the physical proof that making art is still a craft done by hand.

The Opera's costumes are set to make the rounds at Halloween parties throughout the Bay Area, and some will end up in collections. The company that made them gets back to the harder business of balancing the books.

San Francisco has shown it will stand in line to buy the past, for a weekend at least; whether that pays for the future is another matter.

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