Lyric Opera 2022-2023 Issue 1-Ernani

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 14 When an 18-wheel semi truck carrying scenery for a Lyric Opera of Chicago production pulls up at the loading dock on Washington Street, the northern border of the company’s building, its journey isn’t quite finished. First it will make a right turn onto Wacker Drive and stop, more or less in front of the box office. There, the large over-the- road sleeper cab, ubiquitous on the nation’s highways, will be replaced by what is known as a “city cab,” several feet shorter than the original. The truck then completes a circuit of the block, crossing the river twice more and pulling up this time on the far side of Washington, and backing its unusual cargo through the enormous door (see above). Though it will likely have already traveled quite a distance—scenery for Lyric’s upcoming Fiddler on the Roof , for instance, sailed across the Atlantic from a German port to a New York shipyard, boarded a train to Henry, Illinois (a little north of Peoria), and then was trucked to the Loop—the container still has about eight feet to go. That’s the measure from street level down to the Ardis Krainik Theatre’s backstage caverns. And that, for almost three decades now, has been the most perilous part of the trip. Things changed over the summer, with the installation of the company’s new, custom-built truck lift, a state-of-the-art equipment elevator with a capacity to raise Lyric Opera of Chicago Taking Lyric to the next level One powerful new piece of equipment is giving the entire company a real lift. By David Zivan