First Opera performance — bewdy!

It was a long path: story to libretto to opera, rehearsals, PR and media, logistics, more rehearsals, more logistics, more rehearsals, and finally — the first performance of The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders!

Friends, guests, and opera fans joined our three wonderful singers, our troupe of actors, our conductor, our technician, and me (librettist and producer) to hear the work for the first time. We got tons of valuable feedback, we got to hear the piece "in the air" (as they say), and we had a blast. The best thing about working in the arts is the chance to have adventures with amazing, superpower-equipped people.

The singers in the throes of performing our opera — they even LOOK like they sound terrific!

So now we're looking at the next phase of developing the project: revising the libretto in light of the insights from this performance; getting the score professionally performed and recorded; and commissioning the animations. (Yes! Animations! Multimedia! Spectacle! Wonder! Bedazzlement! This is going to be quite a show, once we're done with it — if want to follow its fortunes as we make it the best it can be, and then get it produced in full, please "like" its Facebook page.)

The very next morning after the performance I took off for the States. I'm in Chicago now, jetlagged but very excited indeed, both to be home in the first place and in anticipation of the World Science Fiction Convention, in which I will be delivering a paper and a reading, and participating on panels. The adventures are rumbling toward me like...like...juggernauts!