Eslurian Opera House
| Type | Opera house |
|---|---|
| Kingdom | Galecrest |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
The Eslurian Opera House is the opera house of Galecrest, standing on the red brick plaza at the heart of the floating city. It draws hundreds of Eslurians to Galecrest each year for the High Moon Festival, and it is the building where Barnaby Britto's parents met.[1] Nobody in the books ever goes inside it.
The building
Barnaby describes a massive marble building with columns all around it and "two golden dragons on either side of the roof", their wings spread high into the sky.[2] Seeing it for the first time from the plaza, Beatrice Tidal recognised it at once from that description and found it beautiful and ornate; Barnaby said it was better than the photos.[3]
What is inside is known only at second hand. Barnaby, who has a postcard of the front and has seen photographs of it, dreams of "its lush gold-embroidered curtains, its myriad rows of plush red seats, its glittering polished wooden stage", and of sitting one day in the front row.[1][2] No scene in the books is set indoors there, and neither the company that performs nor anything it performs is named.
The plaza
The wide cobblestone main street of Galecrest pours into a vast red brick plaza where a gold dragon statue stands as tall as a four-storey building, its mouth open in a roar and its wings spread over the people releasing floating lanterns beneath it. The Opera House stands to one side of the plaza. Across from it, at the top of a flight of marble stairs, is the Galecrest Library, marked by a large stone statue of an open book beside its front door. On a hill beyond the city stands a castle with high gables and a balcony, its lights on for the Festival.[3]
Admission
Who keeps the Opera House, and on what terms it lets anyone in, is not recorded. What is recorded is what an Ovallian boy said to Barnaby on the beach at Ovallia before tearing his postcard in half: "The Opera House is no place for an Olphin", and that they would never have let a freak like him in there.[4] Whether the house itself would have turned an Olphin away is never established. Barnaby grew up behind a shop door whose yellowed sign read Olphin Present, and did not expect to be welcome anywhere.[1]
He was stopped at the last moment all the same. Reaching the plaza during the Festival he took a step toward the doors, and Alpin Loomin caught his arm and reminded him that the whole of Eslura did not yet know the truth about his people. Bea whispered "We'll get you in there" and Barnaby nodded. The books do not record him going in.[3]
The postcard
Barnaby was raised at Tide Tale Alley Books in Ovallia with a tattered postcard of the Opera House in his pocket, the front picturing the building and the back carrying a note from a father he cannot remember. The note wished that Barnaby would one day see the building with his own eyes and told him "It is a special place to your mother and I", the very place the two of them met. He had read it a couple hundred times.[1]
The postcard did not survive Ovallia. A boy in the street recognised him as an Olphin, snatched it, tore it corner to corner and let the shreds trickle down onto the sand.[4] Barnaby remembers it afterwards as lost to the ocean, and as the last piece of his parents he had.[5]
Notable events
- Barnaby reached the plaza during the High Moon Festival with Bea, Alpin Loomin, Alistair Archibald and Seely, and saw the Opera House for the first time.[3]
- Minutes later the ground shook. The roof of the Galecrest Library came down across the plaza and a shard of roof tile opened a gash down Bea's arm. Seely put it down to an earthquake. Nothing is said of damage to the Opera House.[3]
- That night the Nelazgians set fires on the east side of Galecrest and the Festival ended all at once, the gold decorating the city going dark under the smoke. What became of the Opera House is not recorded.[6]