Teatro Colón

The grand theatre in Buenos Aires is the Teatro Colón.  Dating back to 1908, it is a grand building on the outside and resplendent inside.  Its seven floors are all gilded wood, fancy lighting and red velvet.  Well maybe more pink now as some of it is a bit faded.
The six balcony levels are only shallow and are steeply inclined.  The first three  are entirely made up of little boxes for six people.  The top three have a few rows of seats and then standing areas.  The standing areas are split by gender, with women only on the fourth level, men only on the fifth, and mixed on the sixth.

We went along to a ballet production of Carmen, which to my untrained eye seemed pretty good.  There were certainly a lot of 'bravos' at the end for some of the leads.

Note to self though, next time we go to a ballet we should read up on the plot first; whilst we followed it mostly right, I did make the already complex relationships even more so by mistaking a girl's prospective mother-in-law for her school teacher and possible lover.  Oops!

But back to the theatre.  It is large and impressive, and I can see why it is so well regarded in Buenos Aires, but personally I prefer some of the London theatres.  Some of the smaller and older ones in particular have a real character to them, while if you want impressive, you need look no further than the Royal Albert Hall.

That is the nice thing about travelling, sometimes you see things that blow your mind and make you want to always be somewhere new, but other times you are reminded of what is great about where you are from.