Opera is grand passions, temperaments, spectacular outfits, and fantastic music. Which makes it ideal for a 60-minute late night cabaret on the main stage of the Opera house. Kicking off with a drag lip-synch of "Siempre libera" from La Traviata, interrupted and upstaged by actual-opera-star Cathy-Di Zhang, and moving on through suggestive interpetations of the flower duet from Lakme, a fan-danced habenera from Carmen, Nessun Dorma with filthy surtitles, a mash up of Mozart's Queen of the Night aria and Whitney Houston's Queen of the Night from the Bodyguard soundtrack, and host Rueben Kaye giving an up-close-and-personal-with-the-audience interpretation of Harry Nillson's "Without you". It's a great chance to experience Opera highlights in a great venue in a less formal environment in a bite-size way.
Having said that, the less-formal atmosphere doesn't always suit some songs- an audience who will cheer every high note will often cheer over the first five seconds of the glorious cadenzas during "Glitter and be Gay", for example - stuffy Opera etiquette does have its reasons sometimes. But it's a fun night out and hopefully will continue in future years (possibly Opera up-just-a-little-earlier as finishing after midnight does mean missing the last train and having to switch over to the night bus back to my hotel)
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