Final Adagio

Tonights performance of Mahlers Ninth Symphony marks a new beginning for Maestro Auguste Leloir. Behind him are the ghosts of his first appearance with the Chicago Philharmonia thirty years ago, when the dreams of the conductor and his new bride were brutally destroyed by the blade of an unknown assailant. But at the end of the evenings triumphant concert, death emerges once again to take the solo bow. The Philharmonias principal oboist and Augustes longtime friend, Nicholas Koshevsky, suffers a heart attack onstage during the fading chords of Mahlers great requiem, the Final Adagio. Observing the reactions of those closest to Nicholas, Auguste begins to question whether the oboists death was inevitable. As he unravels the backstage labyrinth of orchestral politics and personal betrayal, he discovers that death by natural causes serves as a convenient cover for murder. Offstage, Leloir is lured into a web of deceit and long-held hatreds that hold the key to solving his wifes murderand ultimately to his own survival.