Grand Opera is just now returning to the Metropolitan Opera stage in New York City,  but it hasn't missed a performance in Maui, where every sunset is operatic. No Wagnerian cymbals or french horns are needed to emphasize the drama when Maui's sunset countdown begins each evening. Maui's sunsets are its Grand Opera, dramatic, bigger-than-life light shows of infinite variety, far overshadowing Maui's other world-class attractions. 

There is a fascinated audience for each performance. Even jaded locals watch. Visitors gather. Some move lawn chairs into position. Others stand to capture the scene on smartphones and tablets, bright screens distracting in the foreground, each depicting in miniature what is gloriously happening in real time and space - on life's full-screen. Sometimes a conch sounds, often trembling with doubtful skill, more rarely with a confidence that suggests a Hawaiian performer.

The speed of the transition from bright sun to glowing sky and clouds surprises observers accustomed to the slow-motion dignity of higher latitude sunsets.  But in Maui, modern, impatient eyes seeking rapid gratification are rewarded as the sun perceptibly moves, touches the horizon, hesitates a moment, and sinks rapidly out of sight.   Only then, off-stage and below the horizon, does it seem to linger, as though suddenly reluctant to leave. Like a departing character who continues to sing from the wings, the sun back-lights intervening islands and clouds in vivid color. 

131A1102 131A1108
131A9751 131A9767 131A9776 131A9795 131A3196 131A3199 131A1597
131A3014-Edit-2-Edit 131A3218 131A3229 131A3230
131A3230-2 131A3230-3
131A3238 131A3066


131A0186-Edit 131A3254 131A3255 131A3249
131A3084_DxO

These images are arranged in sunset chronology, but they were collected during a series of performances. This is also the last post in the series depicting aspects of Maui as of April and May, 2021.