It is not Lincoln Center, but the University took one step closer toward being a cultural and arts hub Friday when it presented a free, live opera at Frost Amphitheater just hours after announcing a $50 million gift to build a new campus concert hall.

The big news came before the first note was sung, as officials announced that Helen and Peter Bing had donated money to build a new world-class concert hall.

The University hopes to make the hall the centerpiece of a new performing arts center on campus — part of plans developed by the Stanford Arts Initiative, a multidisciplinary effort that aims to bring more resources and attention to the arts on campus.

“We are grateful for such strong and early support for the arts initiative,” said Assoc. Art Prof. Bryan Wolf, one of two co-directors of the Stanford Arts Initiative. “With this gift — and others that we hope will follow — we intend to transform the arts at Stanford.”

While the timing and details of construction have yet to be determined, the University plans to build the 900-seat concert hall and the rest of the performing arts space next to the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center.

“It will be something that is very accessible to students and the campus community, and also to the community outside of campus,” said Jonathan Berger, the other co-director of the Stanford Arts Initiative.

According to a University press release, the plans for the concert hall include a studio theater, an outdoor theater garden and other spaces, including a costume shop and recording studios.

“The acoustics in the concert hall will be superb,” Berger said. “And it will be a large enough venue for performances by the 90-member Stanford Symphony Orchestra.”

Berger could not publicly release other details about the new center.

The Stanford Arts Initiative, in conjunction with the San Francisco Opera, also arranged for the performance that followed the announcement of the new concert hall.

The simulcast presentation of Rigoletto featured a nineteenth-century opera with a twenty-first century twist. While operatic voices dazzled the crowd on campus, the singers were actually standing on a San Francisco stage 40 miles away.

Utilizing state-of-the-art sound equipment and custom cinematography, the performance could be heard and seen at Frost Amphitheater simultaneously with the actual performance on stage at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House.

The Opera was also screened as a simulcast at the city’s Beaux Arts Civic Center Plaza.

“The opera actually approached us about the idea,” said Mary Raftery, executive director of the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts, which helped organize the event along with Stanford Events and Stanford Lively Arts.

Raftery said that Rigoletto was the first step in a longer partnership between Stanford and the San Francisco Opera. She added that the University is currently talking with the Opera about a piece by renowned composer Philip Glass. Glass may visit campus in the fall of 2007, when his opera debuts.

More immediate collaboration between the University and the Opera is already underway.

“The partnership is being developed on a number of fronts,” Berger said. “We’ll be doing an IHUM and perhaps a freshman seminar related to the opera. We want to raise the sense that opera is an exciting, vibrant art form.”

He added that group trips to the Opera are being organized through Residential Education, and one Row House had already made plans to go.

The high student attendance at Friday’s performance appears to indicate that there is definite interest in opera on campus. Raftery estimated that there were about 3,500 people in Frost, which was “better than expected.”

And despite the free ice cream for students, not all who attended were freshmen.

“I was amazed at how many people were there and how varied their background was,” said sophomore Liz Brody. “There were people from the community, students, and even people on dates.”

Other students remarked that the comfort of Frost’s relaxed seating and the close-up views made for a better experience than actually attending the opera.

While Raftery claimed the resolution for the simulcast was the same quality as an LCD screen or a high definition television and that the sound was of concert quality, some students complained that the screen was too small.

The equipment used for the simulcast was arranged by the Opera according to technical specifications from the University. The Stanford Arts Initiative funded half of the cost of the event, with help from the President’s Fund. The other half was covered by the Opera.

Rigoletto takes place in the court of the Duke of Mantua during the Italian Renaissance and centers around Rigoletto, a court jester whose acidic temperament is tamed only by the love he has for a daughter he keeps concealed. When he finds that the Duke has seduced his daughter, Rigoletto plans to have the Duke killed. But when plans go awry, his daughter is killed instead.