revolutionary opera

Saw a performance of the above revolutionary opera in September. We were very lucky to have been in Pyongyang at the right time to catch it. The scenery is beautiful as well as the music and singing. It was the first revolutionary opera written so the story, which is much like what Thomas Hardy would write, is very tragic until the last 15 minutes. One has to have the guide give a synopsis of the story to fully understand it. All in all, a rare experience.

Our group were lucky to get the opportunity to go and see a performance of 'Flower Girl'. In short it was an experience. We got to the Opera House about 30 mins before the start. After the usual waiting around outside we went into the foyer. It is a magnificant building, all white shining marble. There were hundreads of young school children also in the audience and they were rushing around outside beforehand. I went to go the bathroom before the show (which is located in the basement) and saw some odd things. There was a gentleman (a teacher?) in the bathroom who was forbidding any of the children from washing their hands with the electric dryers. The really odd thing was that when I went to dry my hands the dryers were plugged out and consequently the floor was covered in water but nobody really saw that as an issue.Our group got decent seats for the opera and we were told that the authorities were notified we would be attending and as such subtitles would be beamed onto either side of the stage. This did not happen! The opera was a wonderful experience, the production value alone, its very hard to describe. I think I remember seeing some clips on youtube. It was 3 hours long with an interval after 90 mins, we left at half time because we could not understand any of it and consequently it got boring. But in saying that it was a special experience. Back in the foyer they have a little stall where you can buy fizzy orange and sweets (and ice cream but DO NOT buy ice cream in DPRK as because all of the power cuts the freshness of the ice cream cannot be guaranteed). At this stall they actually took Euro and gave back DPRK won which they should not have done, this was the only place we got the local currency.In short if you get the opportunity to go to the Opera House - GO!