Day one-and-a-half

 Unlike the travel day last year, this one was trouble free!  The flights were on time and the service good.  The first day on these tours is always spend in something like and introduction or orientation, followed by at dinner and which we are all supposed to "get acquainted."  All I could think of was retiring to my room and going to sleep.   In order to catch my flights, I had to leave my home at 5:00 am for an 8:35 departure from O'Hare.  So, by 8:00 pm, I was ready to crash and burn.  Fortunately I was able to check into the hotel when I arrived at 1:30, which gave me plenty of time to unpack and get settled.  My sleep wasn't uninterrupted, but all together I logged in 10 hours!

Breakfast was the usual hotel, buffet fare, and was followed by our first session with our opera expert, Oliver Prezant.  Oliver always makes sure we all know that he is qualified as an expert in opera, general music composition, conducting, performance, etc.  Consequently, the first hour is always his resume, which I have to admit is rather impressive and always concludes with his dedication to music education.

We then had a guest artist, Maurizio Muraro, who is singing Dr. Bartolo in "The Marriage of Figaro" this year.  He has had a thirty year+ career in opera and has sung with many of the great conductors in the most renowned opera houses in the world.  He was most gracious in meeting Oliver's requests for different singing styles and demonstrated his versatility with his booming bass voice.  It will be fun to see him on stage in a few days.

The morning finished with Oliver giving us a very brief (and I might add) superficial introduction to "The Turn of the Screw", which we will see, tonight.

Lunch, and then off to the Opera House for what turned out to be a rather disappointing backstage tour.  It seems that there is so much activity around the evening's performance that several of the usual stops on the morning tour had to be omitted.  It was also 90+ degrees in bright sunshine.  Since much of the tours involved being outside, most of our stops were anywhere where there was shade.

Then it was back to the Drury Plaza to prepare for dinner and the evening performance.  I'm attaching a picture of the Santa Fe Opera House.