The Great Opera Houses of the World

Opera is the most total of all art forms — a synthesis of music, drama, visual art, voice, and architecture into something that, at its greatest, exceeds the sum of its extraordinary parts. To attend a great performance in a great opera house is one of the defining cultural experiences available to the human being alive today.

**Teatro alla Scala, Milan** (teatroallascala.org) — La Scala is the spiritual home of Italian opera and the venue against which all others are measured. Its acoustic is considered by many conductors to be the finest of any opera house in the world. The season opens annually on December 7th (the Feast of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan's patron saint) with a gala that is Italy's most glamorous evening. Tickets for the opening night are extraordinarily difficult to obtain; the season's regular performances are more accessible and no less musically rewarding.

**Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna** (wiener-staatsoper.at) — The Vienna State Opera performs 365 days a year — a different opera almost every night, with rotating casts of international singers and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the pit. It is the busiest opera house on earth and has been called the world's greatest opera factory in the most complimentary possible sense.

**The Royal Opera House, London** (roh.org.uk) — Covent Garden produces opera and ballet to the highest international standards. Its 2,268-seat auditorium — rebuilt in the 1990s with superb acoustic results — is as beautiful as any in the world. The Amphitheatre restaurant, overlooking the Covent Garden piazza from the roof, is an extraordinary pre-performance dinner destination.

**Sydney Opera House** (sydneyoperahouse.com) — Jørn Utzon's extraordinary building — still, after fifty years, the most innovative piece of architecture built in the 20th century — sits on a harbour of unrivalled beauty. Attending a performance is as much about the building as the music.

**The Opera Aperitif**: A glass of Champagne during the interval of a great performance, in the foyer of a great opera house, dressed for the occasion — this is civilisation at one of its finest expressions.