Tour of the Sydney Opera House

Walking to my 12:15 Sydney Opera House tour I passed a French café and decided even though I had already had granola and yogurt for breakfast, I really wanted to sit in that café listening to French both spoken by the waiter and in the music. Throughout our trip Down Under, particularly in New Zealand, Don and I would comment about the 80s music being played in the background. So when I sat down and hear 80s pop music playing my first reaction was to roll my eyes, then I realized I was listening to 80s FRENCH pop music, as in the kind I heard as an exchange student in Belgium. So, I smiled.

As I left the bistro, I saw two older men at one of the sidewalk tables talking animatedly complete with hand gestures. It felt like a scene straight out of Paris. I could almost see their backstories of how they grew up in the same neighborhood, married local women who wanted them out of the house for the morning, retired from the same company, and continuing conversations started and stopped over the decades. A dog walked by wearing a tiara walking under shade trees sprouting out from the sidewalk past five-story homes that have been converted into apartments. I was teleported to France. I felt like a world traveler who could have offered a 20 euro note instead of the $20 AUS note and it would have been accepted. At the current rate, the 20 euro note is worth $33 AUS, so the French speaking waiter would be a fool not to accept my theoretical payment. At $13 USD, this was a fantastic meal both for the quality of food as well as the time traveling experience.

I was still early, so I took the time to sniff the roses in the Botanical Garden. Literally, and figuratively. Unlike the botanical gardens we visited in New Zealand, these roses were in bloom. They reminded me of the rose gardens in Portland, Oregon, Columbus, Ohio, and near Ashley's campus. As they were laid out as if a test garden to see what works best in that soil. There is a rose garden in Somerset, NJ that is more artistic with sculptures and benches populating spaces to encourage you to linger. 

With a backdrop like the Sydney
Harbour Bridge, you don't
need sculptures

I continued my walk to the Sydney Opera House. Before my trip I read it impossible to take a bad picture of it. Of the 1500 pictures I took in Sydney, easily a third included either the opera house or the bridge. They are iconic and magnificent. When I'm done writing what I did, I will add a post with a photo dump to share more pictures.

Before starting the tour, Nathaly, our half-French, half-German guide reminded us in English we will have to climb 300 steps and there was not an option for an elevator. She handed the 30 of us a headset so we could hear her over the other tours taking place at the same time in a variety of languages and we set off on the hour-long tour, which included two short videos and a lot of walking.

Here we go!

The Sydney Opera House is built on Bennelong Point, a piece of land extremely important to the local indigenous Gadigal people of the Eora nation as a hunting ground. It has been considered prime real estate for centuries.

The People's Opera House, as it is also called, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on a windy day 50 years ago. According to legend, lead weights were put in her skirt to make sure it did not fly about. Later in the trip I caught a video of this at the Sydney History Museum's exhibit on the opera house. 

Begun in 1959 and completed in 1973, the project took so long there was a change in government leadership and the original architect was fired. There are lots of websites that go into the history, including the official website of the Sydney Opera House. I'll spare the details that can be found easily (and correctly) someplace else.

There are several theaters in the opera house: Concert Hall, Joan Sutherland Theater, three smaller venues for story telling, plus they offer fine dining. There are over 1,800 performances a year. I did not appreciate how busy the place is until a couple of days later when I saw Miss Saigon and bumped into a couple who were also leaving the opera house at the same time, but they saw a concert. After we passed through the metal detectors at the entrance, our experiences did not cross paths or sounds until we left. 

The 50th anniversary celebration will include a concerts by the London and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. They anticipate 11,000,000 visitors this year, including me.

Our first 5-minute video highlighted the diverse range of experiences held there, from Broadway shows to a fashion show, to the 1980 Mr. World competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger, to symphonic performances and ballets. 

The opera house is made up of different arches and built with the same logic used to design bridges. We walked inside the largest self-supporting arch towards the Joan Sutherland Theater. Ms. Sutherland was a beloved opera singer who died in 2010. A couple of years later she had this 1500 seat theater dedicated to her. Once a year they put a Broadway show, which was currently Miss Saigon, a show I saw about 25 years ago on Broadway. The set includes a 4-ton helicopter that lands on the stage, and a Cadillac.

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the theater because the set is copyrighted. Here are a couple from when I saw Miss Saigon: 

There is no wing space on the stage. They do have a huge lift in the back that goes down two levels for scenery and equipment. If I ever return to Sydney, I am booking the 6 am backstage tour to see this in action. 

It is all computerized with fly towers and fly bars on which to hang lights. The orchestra pit has space for 70 musicians, only 2/3 are under the stage. A net was installed over the orchestra pit when during a show using live animals, a chicken fell on an orchestra member. It is an added measure of safety.

Opera singers do not use microphones, which is why they do not perform two days in a row (I wondered about this earlier in the year when Ashley was the stage manager for an opera). The ceiling is designed to carry their voices throughout the theater. 

We left the theater to admire the view of North Sydney from the Northern Foyer. The glass was imported from France, one of only two architectural items brought in from another country. There are 700 different shapes of glass in what is called Sydney Opera House Topaz to eliminate having a greenish tint. There is a team of sailors who continuously clean the glass.

We saw the second video of our tour. This one explained the history of building the opera house. For what we paid for the tour, we should have had live actors instead of videos, but I did enjoy them. The opera house became a symbol of the nation, a place to gather and celebrate community, story telling, and the strength of spirit. On our trip, this was the only place I could take a picture and everyone looking at my blog or Facebook page would instantly recognize it and tell me about their experiences with Sydney.

We took the passage that connects the theaters. The architect designed a building that was a giant sculpture. It is covered in one million self-cleaning tiles that were imported from Sweden -- along with the windows from France, this is the only other part of the building imported. Every tile is checked ever five years. In the past 50 years, only two percent of the tiles have had to be replaced. The have many in storage. Years ago, they sold spares in the gift shop, but they stopped doing that in order to make sure they always had spares.

We then entered the Concert Hall. Once again, I was not allowed to take any pictures. We were careful to not distract the piano tuner, which made me feel lucky we could get inside. As with the Joan Sutherland Theater, tours are not allowed inside if a rehearsal is taking place. The theater was to close to the public 1 pm, so we were cutting it close.

In 2020 a two and a half year renovation process was scheduled to take place in the Concert Hall. What incredibly timing! Before the pandemic hit, they had already planned to be closed for two and a half years! There were two main objectives: 1) make it accessible by all mobilities and 2) fix the acoustics. Though it was designed to be a concert hall, for over 40 years the musicians could not hear themselves or each other on stage. They got creative with draping fabric, but something had to be done. Speakers were installed in the ceiling and design changes took place. The ceiling is high -- the highest point is 27 meters (88 feet). A fiberglass petals were installed to create a fake ceiling above the stage. After spending $150million AUS ($97.5million USD). It is now up to world class standards.

In 2007 the opera house was made a UNESCO site, making it the youngest building to receive that designation. Architect Jorn Utzen became one of only two architects to receive this designation in his lifetime.

I bought tickets on the Todays Tix app to see Miss Saigon in a couple of days. Had I waited until the tour, I could have gotten standing seats directly behind where I sat for about a third of the price. As is, I bought the last cheap seat.