Photo: Megan Brian

I ran over to Theater Artaud yesterday afternoon to catch a bit of the unloading of set and puppets for the William Kentridge + Pacific Operaworks + Handspring Puppet Company’s restaging of Claudio Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses.  In case you’ve missed this: Kentridge has brought us a puppet opera, being presented in conjunction with William Kentridge: Five Themes.  An amusing tidbit: there’d been a lot of rumors here that the puppets were being shipped in kid-size coffins, and until a few days ago we were gleefully awaiting the arrival of some morbid-looking little boxes. But of course, uh, musical equipment and the like: those heavy steel cases, carefully padded: they’re called “coffins”.

Photo: Megan Brian

No one had the key to unlock them yesterday, but we have a correspondent onsite at Artaud this morning who promises to try to get some pictures when the coffins are pried open. Many more pictures of the set being unloaded, and of the stage and theater before-the-fact, here. With the exception of Wednesday’s Opening Night Benefit Performance, tickets are, sadly, SOLD OUT.  We’ll post as many pictures and clips as we can at Flickr and here on the blog. More info on the SFMOMA presentation of the opera here.