Backstage tours offer glimpse at Lyric Opera's inner workings

"Opera is magic!"

That's what volunteer Roy Fisher kept on saying during his presentation on stage props during one of the Lyric Opera of Chicago 2009 Backstage Tours.

But Fisher could have also said, "Opera is humbug." After all, Fisher showed off props like gourmet platters filled with fake food, as well as pinches of faux snow (tiny pieces of plastic that get swept up and reused after most performances).

Just like Dorothy and her pals pulling back the curtain to expose the man operating machinery in "The Wizard of Oz," audiences on a Lyric Opera of Chicago backstage tour are offered glimpses of all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes at a world-class opera company.

"It's a real working situation once you go behind the proscenium," said Barrington Hills resident Nicholas Bridges, who also serves on the Lyric Opera Guild Board, which sponsors the tours as a fundraiser.

Though Bridges usually helps out in the lobby serving box lunches and beverages before and after tours, he notes how other Lyric Opera Guild Board members take particular delight in leading groups of 20 to 25 people around backstage at the Civic Opera House.

The tours can be an eye-opening experience, especially for longtime Lyric subscribers.

"For the incredible sumptuous staging in the opera house itself, it's rather amazing to see the behind-the-scenes," said Geneva resident Cynthia Albright, comparing the art deco splendor of the 1920s lobby and auditorium to the utilitarian backstage areas that were renovated in the 1990s. Albright joked, "It's kind of like showing off your basement."

Backstage tours typically last about two hours and consist of 12 official stops along the route. The walking tours start in the auditorium's tony opera boxes where one can learn about the history of the building (it opened six days after the great stock market crash in 1929) and the 55-year-old Lyric Opera of Chicago. For a finale, the tour ends on the main stage where tour goers get to make a curtain call bow to the audience.

In-between, there are many notable stops, such as the workrooms where wigs and costumes are constructed, a stage-sized rehearsal hall, and the massive scenery handling facility (where the scenery of up to three operas are stored). The tour rises up six stories on a catwalk above the stage and also descends to the basement for a trip to the orchestra pit.

And don't forget your camera, especially if you want a shot of yourself conducting at the orchestra podium. A notebook is another necessity, especially if you want to write down fun facts.

For instance, the average wig costs $2,000 and is made with human hair, while yak hair is typically used to construct mustaches and beards (because it's of a rougher texture).

Another fact (jokingly made by volunteer Albert Walavich) is that the Lyric Opera of Chicago can arm many military battalions of different times and nationalities, since a wide array of historically accurate-looking guns, rifles and swords are necessary (depending upon when and where the opera is set).

Often what meets the eye in the auditorium isn't what it truly is upon closer inspection.

"From our view (we sit in the dress circle), that stage looked like gravel," said Albright, who took the tour a day after seeing the Lyric's double-bill of "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci."

"It never dawned on me that they were walking on a kind of rubber matting."