Hansel and Gretel - The Opera

On Tuesday 4 January, we pretended to be sophisticated and we went to the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden to see Hansel and Gretel, the opera. We had always wanted to visit the Royal Opera House while we are in London and we had always wanted to see an opera. So we ticked two things off the list.

If truth be told, this was the second opera we had been to. We visited the Opera House in Budapest in May 2010 - we went mainly to see the spectacular opera house, rather than the opera itself. On that occasion the opera was performed in Italian, with Hungarian subtitles, neither of which are we fluent in. So we, along with dozens of other tourists taking a peek at the opera house, left at the interval, having understood little of the opera.

On this occasion, we chose an opera that we already knew the story of - Hansel and Gretel. This opera was in German but, being in London, the subtitles were in English! The music to the opera was written by none other than Engelbert Humperdinck and was performed by the Royal Opera House orchestra, who were amazing.

The inside of the Royal Opera House is spectacular (see photos below - kindly borrowed from the old interweb, as there is a no photo policy in the Royal Opera House, as some person discovered when they were ejected for taking not one, but two, photos with flash during the performance).

We thoroughly enjoyed our first proper opera experience. The orchestra was brilliant and the opera singers were amazing. We might even be tempted to go back some time...