Opera & Laughter at Hillcrest Bookstore : Music: Discount Comic Opera prepares for a night of wackiness at the unique Words & Music venue. : DIEGO COUNTY

You may think of a used-book store as bookshelves jam-packed and rising to the rafters of a small, rather dingy space. Stacks and boxes full of musty, dusty books and magazines covering every square inch of the store give the feel of rummaging through an attic for a true find. Then the feeling you get as you leave with your new acquisitions--arms full of literary treasures for just a few dollars.

To every rule there is an exception.

Works & Music, with its airy openness and black-and-white tile floors, looks more like a spacious gallery than an antiquarian’s shop. Well-tended shelves of dust-free books share space with works by local artists throughout the store. A grand piano holds court in the middle of the store in the arts and architecture section.

If you stay long enough on a Wednesday, Friday or Saturday evening, you will see this bookstore turn into a performance space. Sometimes it becomes a concert hall for a jazz guitarist or a lecture hall for a poet or scholar. Even--as it will this weekend--an opera house for an evening of comic opera.

“We’ve got it down to a pretty good system,” Words & Music owner Dorothy Gripke said of their rapid transformation. It’s just a matter of rolling out some chairs that are stored in the back room and creating an intimate setting for performer and audience, she said.

This is not your normal bookstore. And Gripke is not your normal bookseller. Since she took ownership of Words & Music a year ago, Gripke has worn many hats for many roles. With a background in finance, Gripke is the first to admit that she “knew nothing about bookstores.” She did know, however, that she wanted to leave the corporate world, where she worked for an insurance and investment company.

Gripke is the acquisitions librarian, gallery director and concert presenter--but only for a few more weeks. She is moving out of state and has put the business up for sale. But, despite the impending changing of the guard, Gripke has scheduled music and art events well into next year.

September is well booked with an eclectic mix of events, including poetry readings, several jazz concerts (including the Art Johnson Trio and Peter Sprague) and, the month’s opener tomorrow night, an evening of P.D.Q. Bach performed by Discount Comic Opera Company.

The company is “a real fly-by-night operation,” according to producer-director and resident “Off-Coloratura Soprano” Kellie Evans-O’Connor. Discount Comic Opera tends to poke a lot of fun at classical opera and the company itself.

“We want people to know that opera is a cheap thrill. Underline the word cheap ,” she said.

Cheap is definitely the way they go. To streamline production and cut costs, this five-member group does everything itself, from making sets and costumes to acting as orchestra.

“The bottom line is all of us are accomplished musicians,” said Evans-O’Connor. Indeed, most of the members come from day jobs with the San Diego Opera or Comic Opera. Musical Director and “Piano Very Forte” Christopher Allen spends his days working with the Opera Theater at San Diego State University, as well as acting as assistant director of the San Diego Men’s Chorus.

Since this is comic opera, the orchestra must have a twist. Shunning more traditional instruments, Discount Comic Opera opts for “kazoos, slide whistles--interesting instruments like that,” Evans-O’Connor said.

Despite the antics, these performances appeal to serious music lovers as well as the uninitiated.

“The music is well-written and well grounded,” Evans-O’Connor said, but the humor takes off. Most of the jokes and puns of these satires are in the names of the pieces and musicians themselves, she said.

The bulwark of Discount Comic Opera’s repertoire is the work of the fictitious P.D.Q. Bach, “the least known and oddest son” of musical genius J.S. Bach. (The P.D.Q. alludes to J.S. Bach’s prolificacy as a father; he had about 20 children.) The character was created by musician and humorist Peter Schickele, a composer of note with many motion picture scores to his name, including “2001: A Space Odyssey.” P.D.Q. Bach flourished--his “history” and his works--in the late 1960s and ‘70s, and a cult following developed.

Discount Comic Opera’s hub piece (or “hubcap” piece, as Evans-O’Connor refers to it), “The Stoned Guest,” a “half-act, tour de farce” that throws together “Carmen” and “Don Giovanni,” will be performed Friday evening along with the oratorio “The Seasonings” and two madrigals, “The Queen to Me a Royal Pain Doth Give” and “My Bonnie Lass She Smelleth.”

“We do our best to explain everything,” Evans-O’Connor said of the gag-oriented performances. This ensures that audience members who might be musically illiterate will get as much a kick out of the comedy as would an opera aficionado.

Amid all this art and music, one might forget that Words & Music is actually a bookstore. But, with most books discounted at least 50% off their cover price, a bookstore spelunker can still walk out with his arms full of treasures.

With his ears full of music and his eyes full of aesthetic pleasures, his nose, fortunately, will not be full of dust.

Words & Music, 3806 4th Ave. in Hillcrest, is open from 11 a.m to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Tickets are generally $9 each. For schedule information, call 298-4011.