A night at the Opera

I never thought I’d be writing about going to the opera, but last night I actually enjoyed an evening at the beautiful Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts to see the opera Don Pasquale. And yes I really did enjoy it; I was going because Regis wanted to see the show, but it was me who actually managed to stay awake through the entire show. 

The venue is home to the National Opera and Ballet Companies and is a purpose built centre to host opera and ballet on three stages and can seat over 2000 people including the orchestra on five tiers of seating. It is a beautiful stylish modern building built to allow this type of performance to show its best. 

Lots of Opera fans

The opera itself, Don Pasquale is a light hearted comedy/love story about an old and cranky hotel owner who objects to his nephew marrying the girl he wishes and how he is tricked into approving of the union. We were able to download the story itself in English, as of course the opera is in Italian, but the Four Seasons provides a running video closed captioning above the stage so those of us not speaking fluent Italian can follow along. This simple addition makes it so much easier to follow the story. 

Now, not really sure if we would enjoy the opera, we purchased “Cheap Seats” way up on the fifth tier in the back, and so most of those 2000 audience members were seated closer to the stage than we were, but the huge venue is designed so everyone can see clearly, but I could easily see how “opera glasses”might be useful, as I was not always sure who was actually singing. 

In the "cheap seats"

We were very fortunate for after the intermission, an usher came up to us and offered us two seats along the side but much closer to the stage where we had a better view of the actor/singers but also a good view of the orchestra. 

BUT, perhaps if something else interesting comes up, Regis might be able to convince me to go to another opera. 

We were sitting WAY up there. This view is from our "better" seats

Happy in our new seats