Cabaret Opera - now there's a concept. Instead of sitting in a posh seat at the War Memorial, you could be lounging in front of a candle-lit table with an intimate crowd, with a nibble and a glass of Chablis for comfort. The atmosphere dictates the presentation, suggesting smaller scale assays of the human condition. In the case of Sarah Michael's Arachne, presented at Goat Hall in the Potrero District through next weekend, the production struck a balance with the score and its message, fitting well into the weatherbeaten but wholesome little venue and the artistic vision of its manager, director Harriet Page.

The opera itself is a marvel of miniature. Cast for seven women's voices, its one act and three scenes comfortably inhabit an hour and twenty minutes with a complete and elegant statement about not just the hubris inherent in its epic subject, but also the relationship of creator to creativity and the question of authorship of inspiration. Sarah Michael wrote the libretto with a composer's sense of drama and a comparative mythologist's sense of psychology. Both the inevitability of the story and the momentum of the music rolled along with surprise, humor, and perceptive emotional dialog.

In the tradition of the Greek dramatists, Michael imagined gods and mortals of quite human and complex proportions, obeying the laws of mythos in three dimensions. Bearing this out is her touching final scene wherein Arachne receives her dubious reward for besting the goddess Athena in a weaving contest. Athena sang of the gift of wisdom, which leads to sympathy, and then regret. The audience was made to feel the real burden of remorse falling on Athena for having to fulfill her duty in punishing Arachne's pride. There were other moments that were perhaps as revealing of the composer as of her subjects; when both goddess and weaver exchanged a moment of mutual respect and admiration as they viewed each other's handiwork; when Athena in old-woman disguise warned Arachne "Although you don't concern yourself with Gods, they concern themselves with you."

Assurance and cool nobility

The casting of the leads was spot-on. Debra Niles was at ease in the title role. Her fiery, piercing manner and cutting yet clear vocal tone underlined her character's humanity, not just her pride. In Arachne's aria, "I spun the thread," listing in detail her self-creation as an artist, in presence and musicality, Niles commanded the stage with assurance. The match for this passion was eminent in the cool nobility of Australian soprano Narelle Yeo as Athena. Her bearing of authority and wisdom seemed effortless, as did her vocalism, a strong, warm instrument of honeyed coloration. Throaty, like an alto flute in the lower register, her voice seemed to be both open and dark as she gained in pitch and energy in the middle range, yet it revealed brilliance and lightness of tone at the top.

The supporting nymphs were part clown, part Greek chorus. Dressed in 70's thrift-shop chic, they came off as archetypal mythic maids, fun-loving, enthusiastic and easily bored, yet capable of depth and insight when the tone became more serious. Michael used the three voices freely, in beautifully written duos, trios, and recitatives that seemed almost like arias, and in some cases, were. The team of Tisha Page, Alexandra Picard, and Nova Dague (who looked for anything like Suzanne Sommers in Three's Company) had chemistry, bouncing off of each other at times, or uniting as a collective soul.

Not so successful were Cynthia Weyuker and Leslie Carr-Avalos as the two crones, dressed like a pair of Park Avenue yentas. They seemed a bit uncomfortable with their material, and revealed some unevenness in the third scene as the lyricism became mildly tortured and atonal in places. Even so, their solos, ending the second scene and starting the third, had the effect of putting this contest of titanic egos into common perspective.

Musically, this was Michael at her best, markedly absent of self-deprecation or ambivalence. The score had an even, gracious flow that supported the story with logic and heart, with a style that united a folk-derived modal approach with the composer's own contemporary American lyricism.The seven-piece orchestra sounded full and organic under the baton of Kathleen McGuire, with particularly effusive playing from harpist Suki Russak in a part that was nearly continuous over the course of the evening. When combined with the artful direction of Page and stage design of Dale MacDonald, the work proved a powerful follow-up to Alburger's Henry Miller in Brooklyn, performed here last year in the Goat Hall Productions series. Maybe there is something to the conjoining of those apposite terms, Cabaret and Opera. Until the SFO starts playing casuals, I'll be getting mine at Goat Hall.

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