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Seattle, WA—Super Bowl hysteria reached beyond the gridiron and into the opera house when the general directors of Seattle Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, Speight Jenkins and Mark Weinstein, made a wager on the outcome of the game between their cities’ respective teams: the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The two general directors agreed that whoever lost the wager would wear the winning team’s jersey to his company’s next board meeting and have his picture taken with his board of trustees standing behind him.

Tuesday, February 7, 2006, just two days after the Seahawks’ 21 to 10 loss to the Steelers, it happened. Seattle Opera’s Speight Jenkins, true to his word, wore a Pittsburgh Steeler jersey, Bettis’s number 36 (provided by Pittsburgh Opera), to Seattle Opera’s board meeting and was photographed standing before the Opera’s trustees.

Jenkins said, “The photo may not be exactly what the Pittsburgh Opera expects, but it carries out the wager and reflects the feelings of all of us at Seattle Opera. Next year will be different.”

Weinstein responded, “It was a valiant Seahawk effort, but as Wagner teaches us in the Ring, no team would have been able to stand in the way of true destiny. Let’s do it again when the Mariners meet the Pirates in the World Series.”

Seattle Opera and Pittsburgh Opera have often joined together as production partners, co-producing such operas as Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann. Seattle Opera’s new production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte opens February 25. Pittsburgh Opera’s production of Handel’s Xerxes opens February 18.