That's right! After 6 months away from the Opera House, it's good to get back and reacquainted with everyone in the pit. Some of our orchestra peeps stay in Chicago, others travel to their summer jobs, (and a few make recordings, which you can read about further down), but everyone spends the off-season making music where they can. Once fall comes however, it's time to gather back in the pit and put our opera hats on.
We have a big season underway (performances of Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Verdi's Luisa Miller have already begun), culminating in the spring with Wagner's Ring Cycle. Playing four operas (3 of them clocking in around 5 hours) over the span of a week takes a combination of stamina, training, denial, coffee, and Advil (lots of Advil, maybe more coffee). Playing it is one of the more punishing things musicians ask of their bodies, but there are points where the music is just so exhilarating and gorgeous that you can't wait to get to the next note, and the next note, and then the one after that. Before we get to The Ring, we've got the Chicago premier of Dead Man Walking, as well as Mozart (Don Giovanni), a trio of Donizetti finales, Puccini (Madama Butterfly), and Tchaikovsky (The Queen of Spades). Because this is such fantastic season, we wish there were opera performances in January. We'll especially miss seeing our audience then - there's nothing like friends to get you through the cold winter months. But we'll soldier through and meet you again in February, playing the most beautiful music with the world's greatest singers in the grand Civic Opera House in Chicago. Really, it's great to be back!