My OH and I talk about travel a lot and I would say it was one of the first things that we discovered we had in common. For the entirety of the time that I have known him he has told me stories of one of the greatest theatres in the world and how amazing it is, so when we first started discussing a child free weekend in Cornwall we knew it was on our hit list to have a good look around. A couple of weeks before we headed off it was birthday and to my delight he had bought me these:
Eeeeeek! I cannot being to tell you of my excitement as I had been wanting to see an opera for a while.
We had a few issues upon arrival in Cornwall (our car died *sob*) but luckily enough we managed to get a hire car so that we could actually make our date at the Minack. It is hugely popular and our show was completely sold out. This is the view from the queue looking down at Porthcurno beach:
Amazing!!
We did wait for a while to get in but then we were purposely very early. I would say as long as you are there half an hour before the show then you should get an ok seat. We had assumed from the website that we could sit wherever we wanted to but they fill from the front up so you have to sit wherever they direct you to.
I would suggest that you go to the loo before you take your seat as it's a long way down depending on where you are sitting. It's also really steep but as it's a cliff face I guess that's not a surprise to most people!! Once we found our seats we did go back to the little cafe to get some food and had one of the best cornish pasties I've ever tasted. Not only were they amazing they were also cheap as chips - not very often you can say that at a great place.
This was the stage:
Have you ever seen a nicer looking stage in your life?
Look at that view!!
We were so incredibly lucky before the show started that we could see dolphins jumping in the distance. I do not have enough superlatives to describe what an amazing experience it was. Apparently it's quite common to see them during a performance. Unfortunately I only had my phone camera with me so I didn't manage to capture any reasonable photos.
The Minack Theatre was hewn out of the cliff face by an amazing lady called Rowena Cade, therefore all of the seats are either solid rock or grass covered but they were actually really comfortable. We did hire seat pads though which were £1 each from the box office, not sure it would have been quite so comfortable if we hadn't.
The theatre is truly something else:
And our performance of La Traviata was just breathtaking:
Oh my goodness, the final scene had me sobbing like a baby:
Just so incredible. The main characters in the cast were outstanding.
As you can see from the pictures we were incredibly lucky with the weather. I'm not sure that it would have been quite so immense if it was rainy heavily or very windy. Most of the audience though seemed prepared for the weather and you would at least need a warm top and full length trousers. It was beautiful when we were there but it did get chilly towards the end.
There is a visitor centre which is open in the day to have a look around if there are no performances on and you can do a backstage tour which costs about £5 each but unfortunately we missed this due to our car problems. The cafe is also open during the day and if nothing else I would suggest going there just for the views and the pasties. I honestly can't recommend it highly enough to everyone!!
