FAQs and Etiquette

Here are some helpful tips to ensure an enjoyable evening:

• Arrive on time! The doors generally open one hour prior to the performance start time. Latecomers will not be seated and will instead be invited to watch a live feed of the opera on a large screen in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.
• Sound carries very well in the opera house. Turn off all cell phones, pagers and other electronic devices that may make noise. Any sound, including speaking, is distracting for both the audience and performers.
• Unwrap and enjoy your candies in advance. There is no food or drink allowed in the auditorium.
• You are encouraged to stay in your seats until intermission. Re-admittance during the performance cannot be accommodated.
• In consideration of patrons with allergies, please avoid wearing strong perfumed beauty products and fragrances.

Audiences come to operas in everything from formal attire to jeans. We advise dressing for comfort, but with flair.

Opera audiences range from mature opera lovers to young children (depending on the appropriateness of the story) and everyone in between.

Performances can run from 90 minutes to six hours depending on the opera, but most last approximately three hours. Generally, if the opera is over 90 minutes there will be an intermission.

At the end of the opera when an audience really enjoys a performance they tend to stand and cheer "bravo" for their favourite male singer, "brava" for a female singer, or "bravi" for a group of singers and orchestra. If you were moved by the performance, let the singers or orchestra know!

The COC employs SURTITLES™ on all its mainstage performances.

SURTITLES™ projections are a capsulated translation of an opera's libretto (text) that are projected onto a screen above the stage during the performance. The process was developed by the COC, and the first production in the world to be presented with SURTITLES™ was the January 1983 staging of Elektra.

Since they were pioneered by the COC, SURTITLES™ or other similar titling systems have been used by virtually every opera company in the world.