Slowly But Surely...

Slowly But Surely...
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....we crawl methodically through the final stages of the preparation of this splendid opera, Jake Heggie's Three Decembers. I was thrilled that we managed to get Jake away from the piano this afternoon and out into the auditorium to see this opera for the first time. He has played the piano in all its performances to date, in Houston, and in San Francisco. This was all on the pretext that he had to check the audibility and balance of the orchestra. But he stayed watching for the whole of the afternoon. He really enjoyed it - of course!

And by the way, what we are doing is the world premiere of the revised version of the piece, now in a single continuous flow of 95 minutes, with some really wonderful new material for Maddy, Frederica von Stade.

That was my day really, though since it was really warm and sunny I had a short lunchtime bask to relax me from the stresses of the moment. Tomorrow is more of a mixture, beginning with an 8.30 breakfast meeting at the Union League Club with three board members, our weekly production department review meeting, an event planning meeting directed towards raising money (what else?), and then a post mortem with my colleagues involved with Chicago's first Early Music Festival. In between maybe time for a sunny lunch - but it looks like rain.

And tomorrow evening we have our Pre-Dress rehearsal. Lets hope all is in order and that we get through that smoothly. Lenny Foglia is directing proceedings brilliantly, but getting the level of detail right just takes time. Well that's right - so it should. Precision is all!

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