Going to the OPERA

Gill and I went to the ballet, Taming of the Shrew, and the opera, Madame Butterfly at the amazing and gorgeous state opera house.  The building is incredible and a tourist attraction in it's own right with pillars, and 1000s of gallons of gilt applied.

'Birthday' Girls on the way to the ballet

The ballet was the first night, and it was excellent.  Great story, great performances, incredible costumes and a beautiful set.  The stage is very narrow, but they managed to fill every inch with something and the cast was huge. 

We'd purchased the ballet tickets ahead of time, but the website said Madame Butterfly was sold out.  Madame Butterfly is on Gill's bucket list so we stopped by on a walk by the opera and asked after tickets.  


The lady said no, there are no tickets, clickety clackety on the keyboard.  Gill said, really, are you sure...yes, yes there are tickets and then she proceeded to give us a selection to choose from.

We picked a center balcony on the second level.  Since we'd had seats on the floor level for the ballet, it was a great way to appreciate the fact that this old building really does have fantastic acoustics - and the view and performance were about as good as it gets.

View from our balcony at Madame Butterfly

At both performances, we noticed the unusual way the Hungarians expressed their appreciation for a performance, but that is a subject for another post...

Ooh Aah!