Odesa Opera House

 This is the famous and beautiful Audis Opera House. The Opera House is apparently the exact duplicate of the one in Paris and it really has the feel of old elegance. The outside is currently covered as they are refurbishing the entire outside and returning back to its original grace. We hope weíll still be here when they are done; but it is unlikely. The work needed is massive and progress appears to be moving very slowly. We hear that for years they have been injecting liquid glass underneath the building to stabilize it. Now that isn't working either. The money for the refurbish is coming from some European Commission (or the Agency for Reconstruction in Europe)-not the Ukraine government.

 
 

We've been to see the Nutcracker in the opera house here. Six of us went for our Dutch friend's birthday. It cost all of 30 grevna (spelled phonetically for English speakers) ($6) and we had private box seats in the balcony. 

Below is Juul, it's her birthday. Juul is a nurse working for Doctors without Boarders (MFS-french acronym). Guido, in the background, is a doctor and he works for MFS too. They both are from Amsterdam but didn't know each other until right before they came to Ukraine. Their project is an HIV/AIDS training project. We have all become good friends. You will see them in other chapters of the Odesa Odyssey.

 
 Another cultural event we went to was the symphony: The Odessa Philharmonic. Our friend Sveta (phonetic) took us to see the show and also got us back stage afterward to meet the conductor, Hobart Earle. He is an American conductor, went to Princeton and was quite personable. He has been the Director of the Odessa Philharmonic for 12 years! I guess he likes it here. He must be older than he looks because his credentials in the program are very lengthy and world-renowned.

Yes, that is Jim folks!?! He was still shaving then and looking quite dapper, eh? Sveta was so excited to take us and have us speaking English with another American.

(To read about some other musical events, click here.)

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