The Third Lady

In the basement lounge of the San Francisco Opera House, there is a ping pong table for anybody's use between onstage scenes.



Mozart's currently running "The Magic Flute" has a number of children in the cast, along with adults running around in wacky costumes.



The Third Lady is being sung by the Australian soprano Katharine Tier (above) and her ping-pong games with the boys of "Magic Flute" are one of my favorite surrealist moments backstage.



The late Ingmar Bergman made a movie version of the opera in 1975, and he was famously quoted as saying, "making the film was the best time of my life: you can't imagine what it is like to have Mozart's music in the studio every day." Actually, I can, since we seem to be performing the show every other day and the music bores its way into your brain in a way that's insidious. Thank Isis and Osiris that I happen to love it.