What's Up at Covent Garden?

Friday, we headed out to Covent Garden to the Royal Opera House for a tour. Such an incredibly beautiful building which is home to both the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet of England. Three theaters have stood in this location. The original was constructed in 1732, a later theater suffered disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857, and

the recent reconstruction of the current building was completed in the 1990's.

No photos were allowed inside, sadly, but I found this photo to show you some of the opulence of the theater. On our guided tour we were privileged to go backstage to see the wardrobe area, the props room in action, where craftsmen and women of all mediums were busy at work, and the rehearsal rooms.

A special treat was seeing principal dancers Marianela Nunez and her partner and husband Thiago Soares rehearsing with their director, who play the lead roles in the upcoming Swan Lake production.

The couple fell in love after he joined the Royal Ballet in 2002 and became engaged in 2006 after Soares proposed to her onstage after a curtain call of Sleeping Beauty.

Such a sweet love story--it was a joy watching them dance up close and personal.

From the upper floors of the Theater, we were able to look down upon Covent Garden where there was  a lot of action today.

You see, massive lines, reportedly numbering in the thousands as reported by the Telegraph, were in place for the launching of the new iPhone 5 at the Covent Garden Apple store.

Jumping on the party bandwagon was the launch of Diet Coke's limited edition of Jean Paul Gaultier's design of Diet Coke bottles,

and huge designer chocolate bars being passed out.

There was a "pep team" of Apple employees cheering every 

iPhone purchaser as they finally entered the store and then exited with their new toy!

We had fun playing with the new toy ourselves--much lighter and thinner.

I think I've caught the bug!

Anyone else thinking about getting one??