Royal Opera House - soft opening

You may or may not be aware but Muscat is about to open the doors of its beautiful and impressive brand new Royal Opera House.

The past weekend Muscat was flooded with Italians: a whole Opera cast, staff and orchestra had been flown to Oman for two evenings of performances for a prestigious soft opening event.

I was going to tell you the story of how we managed to get our fidgety fingers onto the oversized gold embroidered tickets for the “by invitation only” event but … naah. Let’s just say that sometimes being Italian with a shiny “faccia di bronzo” can help a lot.

Last Thursday night we had the pleasure of watching an amazing performance of a Gulf-adapted version of Rigoletto by the Teatro Regio di Parma.

Talented artists, amazing costumes, breathtaking sets and an outstanding venue made for a very special evening. Especially if you count that we had some of the best seats in the house (the ones from where you can count the buttons on the Tenor’s costumes).

We are immensely honoured to have been given the opportunity to be there for their fantastic performance and as an Italian I am especially proud that our talented artists and finest productions have been chosen to launch this outstanding and incredible new cultural venue in Oman.

I am afraid I have no pictures to give you (phones and cameras were duly confiscated for the duration of the performance - thank goodness) although I could show you a couple of pictures of the wedding style invitation and a couple of photos of us with the Duke of Mantua who we found in the bar playing pool after the performance.

What can I say? I guess only in Oman you can go to a special Opera event and then spend the rest of the evening in a pub across the road with some members of the cast fresh off the stage, as if they were old friends!

Anyway, we have an amazing theatre season coming up with top artists from all over the world in a spanking new and beautiful Opera House.

I am peeing my pants from the excitement and everybody seems to be in a bit of a ticket purchasing frenzy.

The grand opening is next month with Turandot and the Arena di Verona.

I hope I can make it as I will be coming back from the Musandam expedition on the day. of their last performance. 

Yes I am going back and I almost forgot to mention: I’ll be the expedition leader this year.

Lots of exciting stuff coming up! Bear with me, I’ll try to bring you up to speed soon.