Seoul’s Sejong Center for the Performing Arts is inviting foreign visitors past the velvet rope and into spaces usually reserved for artists and staff, turning one of the city’s most imposing cultural landmarks into a site for intimate experience. On Thursday, some 20 students from Yonsei University’s Korean Language Institute were invited for an early look before the tour officially begins next month. The participants tiptoed through staff-only corridors, quietly gasped as backstage doors opened onto the Grand Theater and explored the stage set for Verdi’s opera “Nabucco,” which was scheduled to open that evening. “The area we are in now, together with the passageways we’ve just been through, are spaces reserved exclusively for performers and staff and are not accessible to the general audience,” tour guide Yoo Jung-a told the group in English. When the group stood facing rows of over 3,000 red seats in the Sejong Grand Theater, they fell briefly silent, taking in the sweeping expanse of the venue’s grand interior and exploring the stage. “Let’s think for a moment abou
Inside Sejong Center: New backstage tour reveals Seoul’s cultural heart
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