And away we go ...

After an unofficial kick-off party at the warehouse last night (er, very early this morning ...) the cast, crew and production teams for Pierrot Lunaire and Lewis Nielson's USW are in Chicago, and officially off and running. Apart from one minor snafu (the employees at Laguardia apparently played a fateful game of toss-and-drop with Emily Dufour's cello so that it arrived at Midway not only devalued but essentially unusable; thus, three days after her marriage to our violinist, Christopher Otto, Emily found herself devising the best way to sue the New York Laguardia airport) everyone is well and feeling fine. We even stumbled through (a version of) Pierrot before the party -- the other Pierrot, the one Schoenberg scribbled down during a week of indigestion and insomnia, then buried in the back of his desk drawer.

In a moment of calm-before-the-storm, Nick DeMaison, Music Director of Opera Cabal:


And yours truly in what I suppose one would call a head-slapping moment?


Photos by Kevin Simmons. Stay tuned for more.

-majel.