A night at the Opera, by Michael Noyce

Tashkent is quite a sophisticated city with a vibrant arts scene. There’s a number of concert halls and the lovely Opera House was built by Japanese POWs in WW11 and finished in 1947. The Opera House was being renovated when we were in Tashkent but we were fortunate to see an Opera in the Tashkent Concert Hall. It is a large soviet style white building from the 1970s; very heavy looking and imposing with heaps of marble. Overall, I think the building is actually quite nice, soviet style aside.

We saw an Uzbek version of what we think was something like Madame Butterfly with lots of colour and movement and very enjoyable, even if the dialogue was beyond our comprehension. Like all good love stories, it seemed to us that the heroine got her man. A very enjoyable night with a walk back to the hotel through the wonderful Independence Square and a short metro ride.