The Opera House, Sydney of Course

The Opera House has featured in many of the our Sydney days. On our first day Anne and I walked up to Circular Quay from our hotel, via the park where the Anzac Memorial is, past the Mint Headquarters and the State Library of New South Wales which we later visited and saw three great exhibits. The Australian Dream, about an architect who designed the dream house on a quarter acre lot. We met a couple on the cruise that owned one. The Curious World of Pamela Allen, a children’s writer and illustrator much beloved by Australian children, and the third about a magazine equivalent to Life Magazine called PIX. All of them were excellent.

The Opera House dominates the whole quay. It draws your eye, and photographing it is irresistible. We saw it again as we sailed away on our cruise, as well as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, another eye-catching sight.

Sail Away

The incoming boat is under the top of the glass balcony, very close to our ship. It creates a very strange visual.

Smaller and smaller. Sadly we did not sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as I had hoped, going under it is going inland.

Yes, those are people at the very top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Apparently they have to be attached as climbers are, but that still wouldn’t make me do it.

Anne arranged a tour of the Opera House for our return to Sydney. It was part of my birthday present. Some history. The Chief Conductor, Eugene Goossens, of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra pressed for a dedicated building for the performing arts. I am not sure why it became the Sydney Opera House instead of the Sydney Symphony House. Eugene Goossens eventually gained the support of the New South Wales premier Joseph Cahill to create a dedicated performance space for orchestra, ballet and opera. An international competition was held in 1955 which received 233 designs. Number 218 was picked. The architect was a young Danish man called Jorn Utzen. I am amazed that although his design was picked they really didn’t know how it was going to be actualized until 1961. Finally it was resolved.

All shapes were taken from the same sphere so that angles were consistent.

And from Joseph Cahill

The names are not completely forgotten, but the Opera House is now A World Heritage Site for Arts. A great effort was made to use Australian materials, and much of the inside is Australian wood. However Jorn Utzen used French glass for the windows, it was shipped in huge pieces and cut on site. All of the tiles, 1,056,006 of them, were made in Sweden, and they are so well made that less than 3% have been replaced all these years later. Utzen thought that just white would have too much glare so there is a pattern of white and cream. To be honest until I was close to the building I had not realized it was tiles instead of a solid roof

He used concepts that were way ahead of his time, one particularly interesting one is that he did not want eavestroughs, or gutters as they say in the U.K, and Anne pointed out, Australia, to spoil the line of the roof. The water flows off and is funnelled through the walkways into a collection system. Centennial College, where I taught, used this concept for their sidewalks, they are porous and allow the water to be collected for flushing toilets, known as grey water. It was one of the reasons that they were awarded a Gold (I think it was gold) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental design) standard for its new campus this century.

However, as is usually the case, there was trouble. The government fell and the new premier did not like how much time the building was taking and the cost overruns. Are any public buildings built to budget? The premier put the squeeze on Utzen by cutting off his funding to pay the suppliers and labourers, which caused him to resign, which is what the premier wanted. Interestingly enough the building was funded by public lottery, in New South Wales only. The guides’ comment was that Australians cannot resist a bet. It was finished by Peter Hall and others. Only this century has Utzen received recognition for the amazing building he designed.

One area of the building was supposed to be a large square elevator to move sets up to q performance floor but the plan changed, and it is the only square performance space in the building and it can be used in various configurations. When we were there this musical was on:

Deco is everywhere. This is the square theatre:

Even the chairs in the Opera House are unusual:

Apparently because of the high ceilings the music rises and falls slowly which is difficult for the musicians to hear themselves, but the wood acts as sound baffles, so it is not a dead loss.

The rest of my birthday present (for that day) was a comedy performance by lesbian Mel Buttle, in the Playhouse theatre. Several times during her performance she said “and here I am, doing stand up comedy in the Opera House”. I think she was impressed. She riffed on her marriage, she wanted a simple one, her friends did not, Her kids, who are of course a lot of work, and she was glad she was away for a day and night, it was hilarious.

Coming back into Sydney at the end of the cruise and early in the morning I did not think I would be awake, but I was, and it was glorious.

Above is coming around Bennelong Point to dock. What an inspired location for the opera house, jutting out into the harbour. Of course the land was originally occupied by Indigenous Australians, and that is now acknowledged at the beginning of performances. They did it much better than we usually do in Canada.

It also has a seal, Benny, who has made the opera house his afternoon sunning spot.

There are more pictures, which I cannot resist putting in. It is hard to see the whole building and it looks different depending on where you are standing.

Anne, and then me. We never did get very good at selfies

So that is it for the Opera House. Til next time.