(Note to readers: if it wasn’t obvious, you can always click on photos for a larger version.)

After a lovely beer and meal at a riverside bar featuring the local brew, we took a short walk over to the stunning Dresden Opera House. It was a bit of an ordeal finding our seats, then having to retrace our steps to check our bags in, but when we finally settled into our cheap seats we were suitably impressed. The rebuilt opera house is gorgeous and ornate, and while our tickets were over 100 euros cheaper than the best, we still had a great view if we did a little leaning. No surprise, I was quite underdressed, a little embarrassing.

The show for the night was Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The lights dimmed and the orchestra played the overture, and it was beautiful. Perfect sound, perfectly played. Then the curtains opened, revealing a modern day office space, men in modern suits and girls in short skirts. Marthese and I turned to each other and laughed – on the way in we had been joking about the modernisations of classics and how funny it would be if that’s what we were seeing! The text and music remained unchanged, but the staging was totally modern complete with smart phones and tablets replacing scrolls and spy glasses.  While the subject matter of a womaniser, rapist and murderer sat uncomfortably in the modern setting, there were a lot of nice touches and striking tableaux that were carefully choreographed and directed. Great performances and fantastic music, just some cringe-worthy lines being displayed on the subtitle screen (both English and German, opera was in Italian).

Another shock was when the stage setting changed for the next scene – instead of things being moved around onstage, the entire stage was raised to reveal another set below it!

We were both kinda sleepy by the end, and the show did go on, but it was a great experience and boy does the final act have some kick-ass tunes (despite having a nonsensical narrative).