I was on the stage of the Kennedy Center Opera House and I shook Placido
Domingo's hand.

But not at the same time.

Through the good offices of a friend in the Wagner Society of Washington DC
I was able to join a backstage tour of the Kennedy Center Opera House
before its matinee performance of *Parsifal* today.

And, since this is not a suspense story, I'll tell you now that, when it
was over and we were back in the Hall of Nations at the street entrance
we saw Placido Domingo (I'm neither enough of a personal friend nor enough
of an opera devotee to refer to him as Placido) coming in.  He came so
close by me and was obviously recognized by me as by everyone else so I
instinctively reached out my hand and he shook it.  Some in the group had
their picture taken with him.  He was very accommodating.  I understand
he'd been singing in Russia only yesterday.  What stamina the man must have
to do that and fly back here the next day to sing *Parsifal*.

The tour itself was an exciting experience.  I wish I could have taken
notes.  I'll try to recapture some recollections and report them here.

Our guide was the Assistant Production Manager, Ms. Corey Harbison, a
delightful person, who obviously enjoyed her work.  Since Catherine Keen
and Siegfried Vogel will be singing Kundry and Gurnemanz in next week's
*Parsifal* in place of today's singers, they had been run through a quick
stage rehearsal to acquaint them with its layout (it's a veritable obstacle
course for the unwary) and we had to wait for them to finish before we
could proceed.  We saw them come out back stage as we came in.

The Washington Opera's season is broken down into chunks.  It's performing
*Don Quichotte*, *Il Trovatore* and *Parsifal* in rotation now.  This way
the singers can rest while the opera house always has a performance.  The
back of the stage can accommodate the sets for two, if not all three, of
the productions (part of the production for the day was already on the
stage) and, broken down and disassembled, these sets looked pitifully
like junque shoppes' rejects.  Having attended last night's performance
of *Don Quichotte* I was amazed at the reminder that the sow's ear that
I was seeing now could be so miraculously converted to a silk purse at
performance time.  Much of the equipment is stored in cases hoisted well
above the floor below.  Indeed the ceiling is so high as to be invisible
in the dark.  If I understood Ms. Harbison correctly, a clearance of twice
the height of the proscenium is required on stage to ensure that curtains
and/or scenery (flies?) are raised sufficiently for no "slips" to be
showing over the top of the stage itself.  Ropes are made of some strong,
smooth, material other than nylon, as nylon stretches.  Knots are all
sailors' knots; stage hands had originally been recruited off the sailing
ships, and legend has it that the superstition against whistling on or
backstage came from the days of the sailors, who would have reacted to
whistles as to a bosun's signal w/ undesired results. We were shown the
production manager's control panel with its multiple TV screens and buttons
controlling lighting and cues for changing lighting, and for the trap door.
The trap door is important in *Parsifal* where the hero catches Klingsor's
spear in mid-flight.  Apparently (I'll know better next week when I'll
attend the performance) through skillful manipulation of lights and maybe
some smoke, an unseen confederate relieves Klingsor of his spear and
disappears unseen off stage while, behind Parsifal and invisible to the
audience, the trap door opens and another confederate pops up to hand off
an identical spear to our hero.

We were allowed on the stage and a peek through the curtain at the empty
hall.  Apparently all of *Parsifal* will be shown through a scrim.  The
stage floor contained "stone" steps made of cloth-covered Styrofoam and
everything is graded up from the front of the stage, which takes some
getting used to maintain balance, which is one of the reasons it was
necessary for next week's replacement singers to familiarize themselves
with the layout. Trees and/or columns are mounted sheets of gauze,
transmuted to their intended status by skillful manipulation of lights.
We also saw the prompter's box and I learned what most of these readers
probably knew all the time, namely that the prompter recites everybody's
lines, following the text and the score, and then some.

The Kennedy Center Opera House has no revolving stage.  Changes in sets
have to be rehearsed until they can be accomplished with precision timing.
This is especially important in *Parsifal* where there are no breaks for
scene changes and the woods have to be converted into the Grail castle
while Parsifal and Gurnemanz sing between a curtain and a scrim.

We saw a few props.  Swords.  Chalices. And the little "horses" ridden by
the children from the Washington School of Ballet who were recruited for
some of the scenes in *Don Quichotte*.

The matinee performance of *Parsifal* was due to start shortly.  Some of
the orchestra was already in the pit.  We had to leave.

As I said in the beginning, we met PD coming in as we were going out.

Walter Meyer