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