Thousands Of Tissues Onstage, Not A Dry Eye In The House

Sure, we still have Don Quixote on stage, but here in the opera world we work many many months ahead. So today, taking a break from writing our 2010 press release, I decided to look a little closer into the future at Madama Butterfly which opens in May.

Fine, I'm procrastinating.

We'll be presenting the incredible Francesca Zambello production of Butterfly, which, for those of you who have not seen it, has thousands of flower petals fall during the "Flower Duet."

I'll let you in on a little secret. They're not real flower petals. They're thousands of pieces of hand torn tissues.

And what better way to get these pieces of tissue than to use free labor.

Late last year, during our supernumerary auditions, we put these eager beavers to work tearing petals for Butterfly. We even had a little contest to see who could tear a stack of tissue paper into regulation sized petals the fastest. Regulation, because they all need to be uniform in size so they all fall together.

Norm Cullen, the white-haired gentleman in the photo below, was our winner.

The losers will get to sweep up all the petals during the five performances that open May 9, 2009.

-- Edward