A night at the opera

Doug enjoys the opera

Culture and that, we went to the opera. Doug paid 400 Tenge in advance for his ticket, while I turned up and paid 300 Tenge on the door. Doug had the last laugh though as, after a lot of Russian chat - of which I understood nothing - I, with my cut-price ticket, was given a chair in the isle and had to sit there for the first part of the opera. Not comfortable.

Our tickets both cost less than $2, so all of this is (heavily subsidised) peanuts. Thus, it may not surprise you to hear that the quality of the opera was mediocre. What would I know? Nothing, but I asked David, a charming Scotsman who a) speaks fluent Russian, b) is an Opera singer, and c) was also there with us. David is an impressive man. The opera is not. It's not a man so that doesn't make sense, I just mean the opera wasn't impressive. The exception was the lead (Violetta?) who was really good.

The young guy was played by an old guy, the old guy was played by a young guy, and they all sang Italian in a Russian accent (the Russian subtitles really helped clarify the plot for me!). Luckily with opera it seems you don't actually need to know the meaning of the words to get the gist of the story. They fall in love and someone dies. No surprises there. This was La Traviata, this was a really fun night out.