Opera Without the Boring Bits in Sydney

Last night I enjoyed "Opera At The Vanguard". The Vanguard is at 42 King Street, Newtown, Sydney. This is a small music venue with a bar and dinner seating for about one hundred people, cabaret style. Simon Halligan, Warren Fisher, Katie Stenzel and Agnes Stark performed opera classics, with a few tunes from Broadway musicals mixed in, dressed in full operatic costume. There was a thin operatic plot linking it all together, with a little humor. The singing was good, the piano accompaniment was very good (an orchestra would not fit in the venue), the wine excellent and the food adequate.

If you are not an opera buff, but want an entertaining night with some of those tunes from the classier ads, then rush to book one of the General Admission tickets at the last performance tonight (all the seats are booked).

It was not quite the same as attending a performance of Turandot at the Acropolis in Athens, but I did not have to sit through a whole opera just to hear "Nessun dorma". ;-)