It is reported that Tony Award-winning Broadway director Darko Tresnjak researched for over a year, including a trip to Petit Trianon, before staging the opera Ghosts of Versailles at L.A. Opera which opens this evening. Sets and costumes are estimated at $1 million, but other expenses would not be discussed including fees for over 80 dancers, singers and acrobatic artists. Even composer, John Corigliano, was flown from New York to Los Angeles for rehearsals because there are so many new notations in the score. Not to mention the luxury casting of Broadway superstar Patti Lupone in the exotic role of Samira that gets 10 minutes of stage time. A planned Met revival five years ago was called off for budgetary reasons. "A good part of the money for Ghosts is coming from a gift from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Gordon Getty, one of the sons of billionaire J. Paul Getty, is a composer in his own right as well as an opera fan. His representatives didn't respond to requests for comment. Ghosts has seldom been seen in its full grandeur since it debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in