rose's random rambly writings

In 1999 it was decided that Oslo needed a new opera house, and in April this year it opened to the public. It was actually finished ahead of schedule - and under budget!
The building is situated on the waterfront in central Oslo, and was designed by Norwegian architect's office Snøhetta who also were the architects behind the library in Alexandria. At first I wasn't quite fond of the look, but I have to admit it has definitely grown on me after I've had a closer look.

There are two stages in the opera. This is the main stage. Unfortunately the picture is of rather poor quality, as we weren't allowed to photograph with flash.
It is 16x16 metres and has several hydraulic platforms which can raise the stage up to 40 metres.
The chandelier is seven metres in diameter and contains about than 8000 diodes which, together with 5800 crystal glass elements, acts as an acoustic reflector in addition to being a light source.
There are 1358 seats in the main hall (400 in the small one). Each seat is built to absorbe as much sound as the average opera-goer. That means that the acoustics in the hall should be equally good whether it's a full house or not.
Every seat also has its own small screen where the libretto is available in eight different languages. It's not always easy to hear what the fat lady sings...

The building has more than 1000 rooms, and naturally our tour only took us through a few of them including the ballet school, sewing rooms and behind the scenes. We also went through the prop rooms, where I discovered the funniest thing on the entire tour - this handwritten note: Black: Can we move the drinking water from the birdshitcorner to a more clean place?
Green (written in dialect/slang): Do it yourself, ass!.
Apparently the opera isn't all classy !