Conductor is recovering after 14-foot fall off stage

DESTIN, FLA. — A Florida conductor was recovering at home Monday after falling 14 feet into the empty space below a movable orchestra pit on the opening night of an opera he had written.

David Ott fell Friday after the premiere of “The Widow’s Lantern,” an original work written for the Pensacola Opera. Ott said he fractured nine vertebrae, dislocated his shoulder and may have broken an ankle.

It happened when the lights were off and he went to retrieve his music, not realizing the Pensacola Orchestra pit had been raised to stage level. He said that he landed flat on his back on the concrete basement floor below and that he was lucky he did not injure his spinal cord.

He hopes to conduct again soon.