Operencia is a distant, dreamlike land from Hungarian folk tales – often described as “beyond the Opera Sea.” It represents the edge of the known world, where reality fades into fiction, and wonder begins.

When I was a little boy, my mother would start each bedtime story with the same line: “This happened in a far, far away land beyond the Opera Sea…”

Her voice opened the door to a world of magic and mystery. I used to wonder – where is this place? How far could it be? How would I find it?

I never got any answers. But the images stayed with me, floating in my imagination. And when I moved to Australia – literally to the other side of the world – those imagined places began to unfold before my eyes. It felt like I had arrived in that magical land.