All will be bright for opening of opera

In time for the Sept. 8 opening of the San Francisco Opera — with “Turandot” — the company’s General Director Matthew Shilvock emailed “members of the San Francisco Opera Family” to announce that the biennial changing of the lightbulbs in the big chandelier at the top of the Opera House had been completed earlier this month. There are 588 light bulbs, and it had taken three electricians more than two days to change every one of them.

The chandelier designed by Arthur Brown Jr., architect of the building, is said to be “the first use of aluminum in an architectural feature anywhere in the world,” Shilvock said. A catwalk embedded in the ceiling allows workers to get inside the chandelier.

“From high up in the fly tower,” wrote Shilvock, who went up — along with Maria Mendoza, Rolf Lee and Paul Measom, supervised by War Memorial House Head John Boatwright — “you access the cat walks above the ceiling of the auditorium ... towards an innocuous metal hatch. Down inside the hatch is a ship’s ladder of about 20 or so steps that takes you right into the heart of a chandelier. Step by step, you descend into something that looks like a 1930s movie-take on a sci-fi alien craft — an interplay of wires, aluminum infrastructure and a beautiful array of slightly cloudy 100-watt bulbs.” (The tip of the chandelier, lowest point of its structure, is “too fiddly for anyone to access,” added Shilvock, so that part gets lowered by electric winch to the ground, for E-Z access.)

Most people who have attended such openings know, however, that no matter how wondrous the electrical fixtures, the shiniest glitz of the evening does not emanate from above.

What to wear? The following defines the positive by illuminating the negative. Tom Coleman’s new book, “I Actually Wore This; Clothes We Can’t Believe We Bought” (published by Rizzoli) provides some lessons in dressing. A few tips:

Jean-Michel Placent thought his patterned silk Versace shirt, bought for opening night at the Met Opera, would set him apart from the crowd. “More than a few people assumed I was part of the evening’s entertainment, perhaps a fireeater or ropewalker.”

“Orange works great for Cheetos, traffic cones and Mario Batali’s Crocs,” said Lee Potter of a cocktail dress. “But I’ve learned that it’s not the easiest color to pull off unless you’re Sofia Vergara or a Real Housewife of Cartagena.”

“The dress wasn’t really my style,” said Rachel Antonoff of a cocktail dress bought in a Vermont thrift store, “but I needed something to wear for New Year’s Eve, an evening that gets way more attention than it deserves. And this is the dress it was getting.”

“Despite the dress looking like it would hug my body,” said Katalina Hicks of her bandeau bandage dress, it “proved to do just the opposite. It kept falling down throughout the evening, forcing me to have one hand on my chest at all times.”

“The jacket must have weighed 12 pounds,” said Chris Burch of a custommade sequined jacket. “After walking around in it all night, I had a newfound respect for Siegfried and Roy.”

“This is not a dress that can be easily ignored,” said Sona Movsesian ofa patchwork frock. “It combines colors, textures and fabrics while also playing with proportions and hemlines. I believe the technical term for the dress is ‘a friggin’ mess.’ ” Following up on last week’s item about “guncles,” David McNair says his “daughters have always had at least 25 ‘launties,’ pronounced ‘lanties,’ who have been a huge part of their lives.”

Reading in The Chronicle about the possibility of Mark Zuckerberg running for president, Sean O’Donnell suggests a slogan: “The Zuck Stops Here.”

Paul Wells, who attended Woodstock, will broadcast — on his “Lobster’s Sunday Brunch” on Sunday, Aug. 27, on the River (97.7 FM) in Santa Rosa — interviews and recordings he made there with a portable cassette recorder.

Salmon Dave was walking on 16th Avenue between California and Clement in what he calls “the Radical Richmond,” when he came upon a message and image stenciled on the sidewalk: “Curb Dog Here” was printed atop a drawing of Paul Ryan.

As to appropriate songs for hospital music, Billy Philadelphia suggests: “Crying Time,” “I’ll Never Smile Again,” “anything by the Grateful Dead” and “He’s Dead But He Won’t Lie Down” by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “Nothing prepared me for being a mother-in-law. Everything I say sounds like a bad script.” Woman to woman, overheard at Synergy Health Club in Petaluma by Lyndi Brown