So foul and poor a play we haven't seen. At least, not during this San Francisco Opera season. That is, until now: behold, the vile production that is Macbeth.

It's easier to count the things that went right, because there were so few: Thomas Hampson (fan), the Adler fellows, and Raymond Aceto, who all more or less shine. The rest, sadly, was pretty awful. You know you're in for a long night when you're forced to jostle your neighbor two seats over because of her audible snoring. (We wonder if the opera tattler noticed that.) Still, we can't totally fault that sleeping lady for doing what came naturally. We do, however, marvel at how she caught some zzz's, since the sounds heard coming from the stage were rough, and not at all propitious to dreaming.

Let's start with the production: it makes little sense. The stage looks like a bunker. Unlike La Rondine, it did not receive applause as the curtain went up. A giant hole marks the ceiling of the set, as if a comet crashed through. Guards dressed in black space-trooper-chic outfits didn't work, the same goes for the typewriter sitting on the proscenium, unused. There's only one way we can comprehend the mess onstage: director David Pountney and set designer Stefanos Lazaridis are fan of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, where a fly on a typewriter causes a typo, and a guy named Buttle to be arrested instead of Tuttle, by helmet-clad policemen bursting through the ceiling, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth. This explains it all. The typewriter, ultimately responsible for the mix-up, symbolizes guilty consciousness, and governmental oppression. Or something like that.

Pictures of Thomas Hampson and Georgina Lukács by Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera