Por fin fui a una opera aquí en Bangkok y la experiencia fue muy gratificante.

In the first place, you make a reservation by phone, which doesn't oblige you (at least at this opera house, in this theater) to pay anything in advance.

The long-awaited day arrived and I found myself alone at the entrance to the theater. My husband had a cold and, since opera isn't exactly his strong suit, I think he had a perfectly good excuse to stay home, knowing I'd be meeting a friend there.

The moment I arrived at the theater, which is located in the Thailand Cultural Centre, I called my friend to find each other, and she surprised me by saying she'd sent me a text a few hours earlier (I'm not particularly attached to my phone, so I leave it everywhere and sometimes can't even hear it ringing inside my bag), to tell me she'd also gotten sick and wouldn't be coming.

I told myself: I don't need anyone to enjoy a show I love this much.

I went to pick up my ticket at the table by the entrance where they were being handed out, half-expecting them to charge me for the other two, but that wasn't the case at all. When I explained that two of my companions were ill, the woman handing them over made a face that said "I'm so sorry," and I paid for mine alone.

This theater, which I already knew, isn't particularly interesting architecturally, though the acoustics are good.

Not wanting to spend too much, we'd bought cheap tickets, so I found my seat and sat down. Not ten minutes had passed when a young man came up to let us know we could move down to the first floor, since there was space.

I imagine that because this wasn't exactly light opera (Wagner's Die Walküre), nor one of the most popular ones, the house didn't fill up, and most of the audience had the look of people who knew what they were there for.

The friend who hadn't come, and who had been the one to make the reservation, had also mentioned that if the house didn't sell out, which was the most likely scenario, they'd give you better seats at no extra charge.

Here in Bangkok you always need to bring something to cover yourself with to theaters, cinemas, and quite a few other places. The fever for air conditioning cranked down to midwinter temperatures in sweltering climates seems to be a universal affliction.

Behind me sat an older man with a distinctly Teutonic look and the face of someone who was thoroughly unwell, wrapped in a blanket. I, truth be told, had dressed rather lightly, and by the next morning I'd woken up with a cold.

It was fascinating to watch this opera staged in an entirely Asian setting, with costumes equally rooted in this part of the world. In this case, our Valkyries were a source of genuine delight, with very tall women standing alongside their petite sisters, all of them with Asian features.

A Siegmund blond and tall as he ought to be, dressed in Asian robes somewhere between a warrior and a karate uniform. Wotan as well, though in a more elaborate costume.

The set pieces and furniture were also Asian, with a low table and cushions on the floor, which meant that part of the opera was staged and sung at, or practically at, floor level.

I came within a breath of bursting out laughing when all the Valkyries came out together, because the whole scene struck me as wonderfully absurd.

To my complete satisfaction, the singers were excellent and so were the musicians, a mix of European and Asian performers.

The Siam Philharmonic Orchestra sounded very fine under the direction of Somtow Sucharitkul, the most internationally recognized conductor of Thai nationality, educated at Eton and Cambridge.

In 1975, this conductor composed "Views from the Golden Mountain" (named for the Golden Mountain, as locals call the temple perched atop a hill here in Bangkok), combining Western and Thai instruments to arrive at entirely new sounds.

The opera ran its full four and a half hours with two intermissions, one of about twenty minutes during which you could have a light dinner, and a shorter one after that.

No matter where you are or what the occasion, in Thailand there must always be food close at hand, because the Thai habit of eating at any and all hours is simply inescapable.

During these intermissions I also had the pleasure of watching the whole spectacle of the audience, people dressed as though it were autumn in Paris, some in overcoats, scarves, the full picture. I laughed, but those same people certainly didn't wake up the next morning with a cold the way I did, so next time I go to a show I'll come better bundled.

The poor sick man I mentioned, sitting just behind me, clearly enjoyed every minute of the performance despite looking so miserable. Which is why my heart sank a little when, during the final act, I turned around and he was gone.

A few other people left before the end as well, but with him I'm certain it was for health reasons.

Finally everything ended to great applause, and I headed out to catch a taxi home. Coming from a country as unsafe as mine, there is something deeply satisfying about being able to hail a cab at midnight and arrive home safe and sound, and I am genuinely grateful for that sense of security in a city.

Sanuk (the Thai notion of fun, of finding pleasure in everything).