MUSIC REVIEW : Disadvantaged Verdi in S.F. : Opera: San Francisco Opera returns to the quake-scarred War Memorial Opera House with a dismal “Otello.”

It almost seemed like business as usual Tuesday night at the San Francisco Opera. A revival of Verdi’s “Otello” held the stage. A large, reasonably discerning audience sat out front.

But it wasn’t business as usual. The audience sat beneath a huge nylon net, suspended just below the chandeliered ceiling to catch any plaster chunks that might fall from on high. Ominous cracks marred numerous walls. Boards covered glassless windows in the foyer and stairwells. Backstage, valiant technicians had to contend with leaky pipes and damaged equipment.

Still, everyone was happy. The Opera had survived the earthquake.

After one cancellation (the first since the company called off Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” in Los Angeles in the wake of the Kennedy assassination 26 years ago) and after three concert performances improvised under emergency conditions in the Masonic Auditorium, city engineers declared the War Memorial Opera House structurally secure. The lyric muse could go home again.

Lotfi Mansouri, the general director, welcomed the audience in an exuberant pre-curtain speech. He noted that reports in the Eastern press about the total destruction of the house had been somewhat exaggerated. Grinning, he called the safety net “the world’s largest macrame.”

He didn’t mention the financial distress caused by the quake. This wasn’t the time for that. In a press release, however, he had “strongly encouraged patrons to consider the plight of the San Francisco Opera and to make their (unused) tickets a donation to the company.”

“Now,” he added in a related statement, “we can concentrate once again on what we do best--performing grand opera.”

They didn’t do their best, alas, on Tuesday. The current production of “Otello”--assembled by Mansouri’s predecessor, Terence McEwen--represented the San Francisco Opera at its worst.

Misbegotten by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in 1970, it was cheap, dismal and perverse from the start. Now Grischa Asagaroff, one of the late sorcerer’s apprentices, managed to blunt and blur the dubious original.

The dramatic values were reduced to silly, contradictory cliches. The musical values, entrusted to Kazimierz Kord, tended toward the loud, the fast and the sloppy.

Perhaps Kord, usually a positive force on the podium, simply gave up the Verdian ghost. That would be eminently understandable, given the shoddy theatrical scheme at hand and the distinctly uninspired cast at his disposal.

There are very few world-class Otellos on the scene these days, maybe two in all. Ermanno Mauro is not one of them.

He commands considerable stamina, and he can rise to some whomping climaxes. (The vocal accident that marred the close of the love duet on this occasion was, of course, pardonable.) Once in a while, he actually tries to sing softly.

He can produce all the right notes. That is saying something.

Unfortunately, it isn’t saying enough. Mauro remains, basically, a solid utility singer. Otello is, basically, one of the greatest heroic challenges ever devised for a tenor.

The role demands tragic power, psychological sensitivity, verbal finesse, expressive flamboyance, overwhelming, noble pathos. Mauro clears his throat, flails his arms and settles for tired operatic generalities. He might just as well be singing “Pagliacci,” or “O, Sole Mio.”

Brent Ellis as his nemesis, Iago, is even worse. He used to be a pleasant, intelligent lightweight baritone. Now, in undertaking heavyweight ventures, he has abused his voice to the point where he can only wobble and/or snarl, feebly. It is sad.

Katia Ricciarelli, the attractive Desdemona, offers compensation so long as she can sustain delicate spasms of blanched pianissimo tones. That, in this context, is pretty long. The usually sophisticated San Franciscans ruined her “Ave Maria” by cheering even before she could reach the final “Amen.” Her spinto soprano becomes insecure under pressure, however, and she allows many a descending phrase to evaporate in the hot Cypriot air.

The supporting cast turned out to be negligible. The chorus made a mighty, undisciplined noise. The orchestra blared and bumbled.

At least the plaster didn’t fall.