One of the highlights of our Sydney trip in Feb 2019 was catching the opera Turandot at the Sydney Opera House. Initially, we had no intentions to do so. I have never been a fan of opera, never having watched one before. We did watch Chang & Eng (portraying the Siamese twins) a long time back but that was a musical. We had also watched/listened to an orchestra performance before.
The context is that my wife dragged me to Sydney Opera House as part of her itinerary. I wasn’t too fascinated, you can imagine the iconic roof line of the Opera House even if you close your eyes. On the the day before the opera performance, we arrived at the box office with an open mind and noted that Turandot was screening. Seems like a good chance to catch an opera and raise my Atas level. What’s more, it’s Turandot/Nessun Dorma. The price was hard to stomach, though an attendant gave me a discount voucher. Anyway, Atas never comes cheap.

On the actual day of performance, we headed to Hunter Valley earlier in the day. We managed to drop the Ford Mustang at the airport at 7pm and took the train to Circular Quay railway station. Then we ran 700m from the station to Sydney Opera House before hobbling up the steps. The performance was starting at 730pm. If you are late, they will not allow you to enter until the intermission. The thought of that propelled our legs.
We arrived at 7:31pm and were relieved that we could still enter. We made our way to our seats, nobody stood up for us (I will explain this in a moment). Two ladies wearing gowns sat on my left, I was thinking ‘wow, Atas, nice’. The theatre was crowded but not packed to the brim.

The orchestra started performing. This was our first opera but we know that we should keep quiet. I can’t recall if I tried to still my breathing. We just ran 700m.
When the opera performance started, it was not quite what I expected. I expected very melodious tunes. Of course I knew that Nessun Dorma would be the highlight, but I thought there would be other nice arias too. It turned out that the characters were ‘singing’ their conversations. We do not understand Italian and had to rely on the surtitles that were projected at the top of the stage. Yeah, those are called surtitles (not subtitles), as they are above.
During the first intermission, most of the audience left the theatre to intermit take a break. You can purchase refreshments (including wine) but water was also served. We had drunk a lot at Hunter Valley, so we opted for free water.
There was a nice art piece at the place where we chilled out. I failed to note the name of the art piece but it’s nice. And I had to wait close to 10mins to take this picture without anyone strolling into the picture.

When the intermission ended, the performance resumed, duh. During the second intermission, we just stayed put. Of course, Nessun Dorma took centre stage during Act 3. I got the rough idea of what Nessun Dorma meant (the lyrics) but nothing beats having watched the buildup to that scene and immersing in the aria.
Two things marred the opera experience. The two ladies beside me spoke on a few occasions during the performance, and the guy (not me) beside my wife was digging his nose during Act 1. It is also courteous to stand up when someone is passing you by. Practically no one in our row did that except for me and my wife. And nobody thanked us.
When the opera ended, we clapped for five minutes but there was no standing ovation. I’m not sure if we should have stood up. The performance was nice and we enjoyed ourselves, but it was not a fully magical experience.
After we left, we took some nice pictures and felt the breeze and our hunger. We noticed there were some that were quite well dressed, including some penguins.
All in all, it was a very interesting and memorable experience. We would definitely want to do this again.
To be Atas, everyone should watch opera. With Youtube, there is no excuse.
