Day 5: The Ultimate Scavenger Hunt

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On Friday, January 25, at 10 am, we had our 'Ultimate Scavenger Hunt for The Daughter of the Regiment. The winner of this thrilling contest that had hunters actually coming to the theate received two tickets to The Daughter of the Regiment on Friday, February 1, at 7 pm. The clever Karin Michelle Wilcox finished first and took a picture in front of the R. Black posters of The Civic Theatre despite the rain. Congratulations!

Here is how she won the tickets:

At 10 am we posted the following hint on our Facebook page:


It was written in Morse Code and translated with any online conversion tool such said:

TWITTER: COSTELLOTENOR JANUARY 22, 2013, 12:39PM WEB VERSION.

This second hint directed the Searcher to visit Stephen Costello's Twitter Page (@CostelloTenor) who plays our Tonio and look for a tweet that was published on January 22, 2013, at 12:39 PM. 


The tweet included a hyperlink to an article about Stephen Costello by James Chute of the UT - San Diego. The tweet was linked to the print version of the article. Here is where the searcher should have used the last two words of the second clue: WEB VERSION.  The web version of the article included three comments. One from San Diego Opera:



It read: 

'Congratulations, Stephen! It is a pleasure to have you as Tonio in The Daughter of the Regiment. Have a look at these pictures from our final rehearsals: http://pinterest.com/sandiegoopera/the-daughter-of-the-regiment/.'

The link lead to a new folder on Pinterest: The Daughter of the Regiment. It contained five pictures:


The first one was linked to our blog Aria Serious? and the other four pictures all included a few extra letters after the photo credits: PM, 02:09, 2013, 01/10. In the right order they said: 01/10/2013 02:09 PM. In combination with the link to our blog, the hint was to find the matching article 'The 2013 season has started!'.


This blog entry included a number of letters in italic:

whenwasthedaughteroftheregimentfirstperformedinsandiego?

They formed the following question: 

When was The Daughter of the Regiment first performed in San Diego?

This question led the searcher to our Performance History on our website and the year 1973:


Beverly Sills sang Marie on March 21, 23 and 25 and her name was hyperlinked to one of our The Daughter of the Regiment Events on Facebook The Sunday Matinee on February 3, 2013, at 2 pm:




This event included additional lines on the bottom of the page:

'Take a picture of you with one of the R. Black posters hanging in the windows of The Civic Theatre and post it on our Facebook wall. Don't forget to include the winning codeword, which can be found at one of the doors at the main entrance, to complete The Ultimate Scavenger Hunt and claim your prize.'

Now the searcher just needed to go to the San Diego Civic Theatre on 1100 Third Avenue and find the codeword:


Take a picture in front of one of the R.Black posters and post it with 'BIRKENFELD' on our San Diego Opera Facebook wall. 

And that was it!

Congratulations to our winner Karin Michelle Wilcox!



Come back on Monday, February 10, 2013, at 10 am to participate in our new scavenger hunts for R.Black Samson and Delilah Poster.

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