FINISHING OUR RECAP of scenes documented but not uploaded back in June, here at last is the open house at Seattle Opera’s new McCaw Hall. (Yep, a giant theater named for a family fortune earned from every theater manager’s #1 bane, cell phones.)

The joint’s not paid for yet, even though its makers saved a few bucks by keeping the structural frame of the old Civic Auditorium/Opera House. And there’s no way of telling when or how it’ll be paid for, since there aren’t any governments in the immediate proximity that have a bunch o’ spare cash laying around.

There are still two arts-related construction megaprojects in Seattle, the new downtown library and the Paul Allen-supported sculpture garden near Pier 70. It’s now time (or rather way past time) to turn our collective fiscal attention toward arts funding that emphasizes art and artists, rather than the more politically expedient route of huge building projects.

The place itself is, as you might have expected all along, a clean, retro-modern looking joint, but with its own touches. The Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall looks like a modern urban Protestant church. McCaw looks like a new suburban mega-church.

In place of the old Opera House’s steak-house crimson wallpaper, McCaw’s all done up in what Ikea would consider to be “warm” designer colors. It’s all so laid back and mellow and formally informal. I’m not sure that’s the proper milieu for opera and ballet, which are (or ought to be) all about big passions. At least they kept all the public art from the old space, including the Mark Tobey mural.