Bird flu has hit Egypt, the world still erupts with anger over the cartoons of religious figures, and spring riots through the streets of Cairo! Amidst all the chaos, there is still time to go to the opera. My first! The Cairo Opera House is a 5 minute walk from my apartment. I often amble through the quiet grounds while walking to and from work. The complex holds a music library, the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art, other buildings dedicated to fine arts plus many statues and a fair amount of trees and greenery. It's quite the repose from the busy streets of the city. The opera house itself, built in the late 1980s, stands grand like a domed mosque, white and delicate like the Taj Mahal, and respectfully quiet like a gallery. Congrats to the architects for successfully combining old regional architectural features with the modern! And, thankfully, the Italian opera, originally set in small villages of rural Italy, was successfully relocated to rural villages of Upper Egypt. Love, betrayal, heartache, murder--in any language the plot remains the same, so the Italian lyrics and Arabic subtitles didn't preclude enjoyement of the sounds and sights. (The top photo I did not take, but you get the idea. It's even more elegant at night because it is subtly lit and serene. Thus, here is an odd photo of the front gate of the grounds taken from a moving taxi.)