[ Mar.2018 ] There is a magnificent opera house called Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires in Argentina.
The last time we visited this city, this theatre was closed for summer and we only joined the tour of the building.
At that time, I wished I could have seen a performance in this theatre and, this time, my wish was fulfilled.
We booked the tickets online before we left and we printed the confirmation email and took it with us.
I had thought the email itself was the ticket, but in fact we had to exchange this for the actual tickets at a kiosk.
We were lucky that we got there early enough, because the queue was quite long and it took a long time to get to the window.
Our seats were in the booth on the second floor and when we finally got there, the front three seats were already taken.
Unlike other theatres, the seats inside the booth were not fixed and the staff told us “Take a seat wherever you want inside here”.
Well, this time we were not going to see an opera or a ballet but it was a concert, so it did not matter too much that we could not see the stage well, as long as we could hear the music well.
Sitting there and looking around me, I was again impressed by the splendour.
This theatre was opened in 1908 and, according to our guide book, the acoustics are considered among the top 5 in the world concert venues.
It is a huge theatre occupying a whole block and it can house 2500 people seated and 500 people standing.
Until 1973 when the Sydney Opera House in Australia was opened, this was the largest theatre in the southern hemisphere.
Th
e architects of this theatre were two Italians and one Belgian.
The music was religious music by Rossini, played by the orchestra, 4 singers and a chorus of about 80 people.
I cannot say anything about the performance because I am not familiar with this kind of music, but the only thing I could say was that voices of the soloists were not loud enough for this huge theatre.
It was sung in Latin and the subtitles were above, but in Spanish, so I could not understand anything.
But at least my purpose to see something in this theatre was fulfilled and I was satisfied.
A funny thing was that one man in our booth was so excited and moved his body with the music.
I would not say this was the sort of music that you could dance to, though.
He seemed to be a musician himself and his friends were at the next booth, so he was looking at the other booth very often.
There was another strange man on the top floor who had a white hat on and he was expressing his excitement with his whole body.
The people were generally dressed up nicely, not as gorgeously as in the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, but as good as in the Royal Opera House in London.
The ticket cost only 470 pesos (about £14, €16 or $19), which is very reasonable.
But for the local people, maybe it is expensive.
Apparently the average salary per month is about 10000 pesos in Argentina.
