The country's national theatre sits in a stunning location, surrounded by the azure waters of Manama's northeastern bay, and offers an impressive calendar of world-class performing arts, including ballet, classical and traditional music concerts, and opera and musical theatre. Tickets are reasonably priced, and there is a smart-casual dress code (no trainers).
Adjacent to Bahrain National Museum, this stunning architectural showpiece covers nearly 12,000 sq m. It's the third-largest theatre in the region and has a design that owes much to local traditions; the interwoven aluminium strips that allow airflow evoke the roofs of traditional homes here, while the curvaceous interior of the auditorium echoes the seafaring dhows (traditional cargo boats). Even the number of seats is 1001, a nod to that most famous book of stories, One Thousand and One Nights.