Dude, why can't we all just get along. It's not like people in Chico are saturated with opera. They see eight performances from the Met. We think there's room enough for the six operas that the SFO will broadcast next year: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Rondine, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Mozart’s Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni, and Glass's Appomattox, each shown four times starting in March. If you ask us, we'd show the Rake's Progress instead of Samson.

The SFO just announced its substantial gross last year -- a surplus of $40k on an annual operating budget of $61 million -- and the revenue from said movie theater broadcasts can't hurt the bottom line for opera houses, right? Right. And TiVo-ing through the intermissions will help keep things zipping along.

What better way to enjoy opera than munching on popcorn washed down with a 44oz Super Big Gulp of Coke, and home by 10 p.m.?

Picture of Patricia Racette in Butterfly, Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera