Our Viator passes for public transportation and for the main attractions was a definite time saver. Our Viator pass for the tour of the Sydney Opera House only had one flaw: Our tickets for the ballet were in row V and could have been better for the price that we paid.

It was an awesome performance and the front of house staff was excellent. They were able to find me new seat when my allergies were seriously affected by the person sitting next to me. My new seat was more central. I really appreciated the service. it was pleasure to experience the Sydney Opera House.

It was a great package and we had a terrffic evening. Starting with private tour of the Opera House, followed by a fantastic meal and service at Guillaume Restaurant and the Ballet "Silver Rose". The staff at Sydney Opera House staff and Guillaume Restaurant were all very warm and friendly and definitely help make it a memorable evening. We also thought that the package was very good value for money. The only minor problem we had was with the voucher for interval drinks. Although we were told that we could have any wine, cocktails etc, the only thing we couldn't order was the premium champagne, it turned out not to be the case. We could only select from the house wines.

As I have never seen a live performance of an opera in my seventy two years and my wife and I were staying a few days in Sydney I decided to take my wife to see The Magic Flute in one of the world's most iconic opera houses. We booked seats through Viator over the Internet and collected our tickets at the Sydney Opera House an hour before the performance was due to start all without a hitch.

The music for The Magic Flute was written by Mozart and first performed in 1791 in Vienna and is to all intents and purposes a pantomime about a prince who fainted when he saw a serpent, three ladies "in the service of the night" who saved the prince from the serpent, a bird catcher who said that it was he who saved the prince and a princess who had been enslaved by an evil sorcerer. I won't go into the plot in detail other than to say as you may have guessed the prince sets out with the bird catcher to rescue the princess who he has fallen hopelessly in love with after seeing a portrait of her supplied by the three ladies of the night.

From what I have read there was a politico/satirical purpose to the the writing of the Magic Flute as both Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder who wrote the words were both members of the same Masonic lodge and Masons had been persecuted by the Empress Maria Theresa before the Magic Flute was written.

The Magic Flute was directed by Julie Taymor, director of Disney’s The Lion King and we had high hopes that the opera would be a memorable performance and indeed it was but none of them were good. That said the singing and acting were good, the lyrics and the music were, however, instantly forgettable.

I know nothing about what goes into producing an opera but I am sure I could have done a better job than this production.

In the synopsis of the Magic Flute in musicwithease.com, the opening sentence says, "The libretto to "The Magic Flute" is considered such a jumble of nonsense that it is as well to endeavour to extract some sense from it" which the synopsis then goes on to do. In the synopsis I learned that the time line for the opera was Egypt, about the reign of Rameses I and the place was near and at the Temple of Isis, Memphis something that I would not have guessed from the rather dull and boring costumes and the the stage settings that varied from the quirky, a large transparent cube with a hole in it to a rather odd and not very convincing temple.

The animations, a flying serpent, various birds and some huge mythical creatures with the body of a bear and the head of a wolf were done I would guess in much the same way that they were done in 1791. The animations were suspended on poles held by a number of people all dressed in black and with blacked out faces. The trouble was that as the stage was taken up by the aforementioned plastic, illuminated cube you could see the animators as they walked about the stage in front of the cube.

To sum up, poor continuity combined with non existent story telling, bad costumes and silly stage sets not to mention dull music and boring lyrics all contributed to a disappointing evening. In fairness however, the vast majority of the audience did seem to enjoy it, there were even cries of, "more" by a masochistic few.