TUESDAY'S gala opening concert of Belfast's glittering £32 million Laganside arts venue, the Waterfront Hall is fast turning into the event of the year north of the Border.
Paying punters have been flocking through the magnificent oval building's doors since mid January for an impressively wide range of shows and events that have already begun to fulfil the "something for everyone obligations of the city council owned and managed facility. The "House Full" sign has gone up 19 times - no mean achievement for a new venue, let alone one with a 2,500 seat auditorium to fill.
Where the Hall's first night in January was as much local sneak preview as chest thumping celebration with local boys such as flautist James Galway and pianist Barry Douglas leading the fray, this week's gala is very much an international event. Raising funds for The Prince's Trust, which invests £750,000 annually in the North in cross community projects for individuals and groups, the evening has attracted the biggest sponsorship package of a single charity event ever held in Northern Ireland. That's as much a sign of just how immediately successful the Waterfront Hall has been (despite the doom mongers who dismissed it as a civic white elephant) as of the kudos to be achieved from an event headlined by the royally approved diva, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and to be broadcast live on BBC.
It's Te Kanawa, of course, who is filling seats (even at £80 and £65 a time), but the presence of British tenor, Dennis O'Neill, Australian bass baritone, Gregory Yurisich, Belfast's own mezzo, Kate McCarney, plus a 100 strong Opera Northern Ireland chorus, and the Robin Stapleton fronted Ulster Orchestra is important too.
THE programme mixes the predictable - Puccini, Rossini, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, a smattering of Wagner - with the obligatory I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls by Balfe - and, no doubt, a few surprises.