Royal Opera House Muscat

While my in-laws were in town, we took a tour of the Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM).  It is a great building.  It is beautiful.  It features a great lineup of operas, concerts, ballets, etc.  But a tour is not the way to see it.

Royal Opera House as you enter it.  Beautiful, but be careful if you are visually impaired.  It can be hard to see any steps down or up.

The opera house is a beautiful, large building.  They spent 4 years building it.  It features the very best of materials for the design and decoration.  There are hints of Oman in the design of the chandeliers and hints of many other countries in the wood and structure.  It was constructed because the Sultan loves his classical music.  He has his own orchestra that travels with him.  He has a bagpipe band, for Pete's sake.  He holds the caliber of performances that come to Muscat to perform at the opera house to a very high standard.  So the shows are great, and you should definitely try to attend one if you are in town.

The chandeliers outside the opera house.  You see similar designs in the exterior portions of the grand mosque.

The beautiful and elaborate ceiling of the foyer.

The stage inside can be transformed for various uses.  While we were taking the tour, it was being transformed either from a concert stage to a play stage or the other way around.  It was also transformed to have a larger stage and ice rink for the Opera on Ice that we attended.  The orchestra pit raises and lowers to allow for the stage changes.  And there are walls and curtains for plays.

The stage with the massive organ.

An advantage of taking the tour is the ability to take pictures inside the auditorium.  They talk about where the materials are from (I don't remember those details because they don't interest me).  And they pointed out the Sultan's balcony level.

The negative is that you pay 3OR per person for a 15-ish minute tour.  It started in the foyer where they talked about the aforementioned materials for the opera house.  They then pointed out the costumes and instruments on display only giving details that can't be read on 2 of them.  We then went in the auditorium where the discussion was mostly based on how the auditorium can be transformed and how it is used.  That's it, the end.

There are so many areas of the opera house that you don't get to see.  They have beautiful windows facing the front of the building with inlaid blue designs.  I saw that when we went to the Opera on Ice.  There are different design elements on the other floors.  The top balcony has engraved marble on the back wall that is beautiful!  You are apparently never allowed around the front, back, or one side of the exterior of the building.  There are no ropes, but an ROP official who spoke no English chased us off when we tried to see the opera house from the front.  Side note:  I don't have an issue with the ROP official's lack of English.  English is not a main language of this country.  It's just a comment on the lack of explanation we were able to get.

So there you have it.  Go see this beautiful building as you take in a magnificent show.  But don't do a tour.  Instead go to the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  It has gardens, architecture, art, and is free unless you pay for an audio tour.