The Magic of Handa's Opera on Sydney Harbour

 

If you are even in Sydney for March or parts of April, try to get tickets to the Opera on the Harbour. Even if you aren't a fan of Opera, it is always beautiful. I usually watch the weather and then try to get the cheap seats that week once I know it isn't going to rain. This year, for some reason I got tickets in the Black Friday sale. Great seats, but it did of course rain. We were lucky that it wasn't that heavy but I stupidly didn't bring my new rain coat I got for festivals...

The set was very pretty and it framed the Opera House and Harbour Bridge with floating red curtains that floated about in the wind and with fireworks lighting them all, it is a spectacular moment to be enjoying the beauty of this city.

The story of Madame Butterfly is so terrible. It's creepy and pretty much all the characters are awful. Thankfully it has very beautiful music. The subtitles went out for a large part of our performace and I did think losing the translation didn't hurt the experience. It wasn't just me that felt this, because some people booed the characters in the curtain call before then cheering the performer. The world is changing, my friends and I think that's a good thing, but it does date all these old stories....

Our first time at the Opera on the Harbour was La Boheme and the production had sumptuous parties, snow, a car on fire, a hot air balloon that floated away and of course, the fireworks. It was beautiful and magical and now unfortunately my standard for comparision. I long to be wowed like that again.

Funny thing with Madame Butterfly, I invarably leave, not with the opera in my head, but an earworm of Malcolm McLaren. And so, I'm playing his song as I write this, and I'll share it with you.

Last weeks for the Opera so see if you can grab some tickets. There's a rush offer on TodayTix or scout the website to see what you can get.

The season finishes April 23, so get in quickly before you miss out!  

Linking with #YourMoment #WordlessWednesday  #WWOAT  #SundayBest  And #RUbyTuesday #BlueMonday for the red curtians and bluescreen pic