SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia is one of the most distinctive and famous 20th century buildings, and one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. Situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, with parkland to its south and close to the enormous Sydney Harbour Bridge, the building and its surroundings form an iconic Australian image. To some the spherical-sectioned shells remind them of the flotilla of sailboats commonly cruising there. Tourists - mostly with little or no interest in opera - throng to the building in their thousands every week purely to see it.
As well as many touring theatre, ballet, and musical productions the Opera House is the home of Opera Australia, the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It is administered by the Opera House Trust, under the New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of the Arts.
The Sydney Opera House has about 1000 rooms, including five theatres, five rehearsal studios, two main halls, four restaurants, six bars and numerous souvenir shops.
The roofs of the House are constructed of 1,056,000 glazed white granite tiles, imported from Sweden. Despite their self-cleaning nature, they are still subject to periodic maintenance and replacement. The House interior is composed of pink granite mined from Tarana, NSW and wood and brush box plywood supplied from northern NSW.
The five constituent theatres of the Sydney Opera House are the Concert Hall (with a seating capacity of 2,679), the Opera Theatre (1,547 seats), the Drama Theatre (544 seats), the Playhouse (398 seats) and the Studio Theatre (364 seats).
The Concert Hall contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world with over 10,000 pipes.
The theatres are housed in a series of large shells, conceived by dissecting a hemisphere. The Concert Hall and Opera Theatre are contained in the largest shells, and the other theatres are located on the sides of the shells. Large free public performances have also often been staged in front of the Monumental Steps that lead up to the base of the main sets of shells. A much smaller set of shells set to one side of the Monumental steps houses one of the formal dining restaurants.
 ORIGINS OF THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
The Sydney Opera House can be said to have had its beginning during the late 1940s in the endeavours of Eugene Goossens, the Director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music at the time, who lobbied to have a suitable venue for large theatrical productions built. At the time, the normal venue for such productions was the Sydney Town Hall, but this venue was simply not large enough. By 1954, Goossens succeeded in gaining the support of NSW Premier Joe Cahill, who called for designs for a dedicated opera house.
It was also Goossens who insisted that Bennelong Point be the site for the Opera House. Cahill had wanted it to be on or near the Wynyard Railway Station, located in the north-western Sydney CBD.
The competition that Cahill organised received 233 entries. The basic design that was finally accepted in 1955 was submitted by Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect. Utzon arrived in Sydney in 1957 to help supervise the project.
OPENING OF THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
The Opera House was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on October 20, 1973. The opening was televised and included fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
Prior to the opening, two performances had already taken place there. On September 28, 1973, a performance of Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace was played at the Opera Theatre. On September 29, the first public concert in the Concert Hall took place. It was performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Mackerras and with accompanying singer Birgit Nilsson.
AFTER THE OPENING
By 1975, the substantial construction bill for the Opera House had been finally paid off, largely through a public lottery system.
The House has been subject to some additions and improvements since its opening in 1973. The pipe organ in the Concert Hall was not completed until 1979. In 1988, a two-level walkway along the western side of Bennelong Point was added as part of Australia's bicentenary celebrations. In 1999, a fifth theatre, the Playhouse, was added to the Opera House.
In 1997, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices, scaled the building's exterior wall all the way to the top.
It received attention during Sydney 2000 Olympics. It was included in the Olympic Torch route to the Olympic stadium, and involved Australian swimmer Samantha Riley standing on top of the Opera House waving the Olympic torch. It was the backdrop of some Olympic events, including the triathlon - which began at the Opera House - and the yachting events on Sydney Harbour.
Security at the Opera House has increased as the result of the likelihood of it attracting attention of terrorists because the Australian Government's support of the invasion of Iraq. This security did not prevent two climbers painting a "No War" slogan at the top of one sail in March 2003. The repair bill for this was later revealed to be over $100,000.
Following an arrangement made in 1999, plans were made to change Hall's internal design of the Opera House to that of Utzon's. The redesign involves the house's reception hall and opera theatre, and will be supervised by Utzon. As Utzon is too old to travel by plane, he undertakes the supervision from his home in Majorca.
Allowances will be made for modern day technology and requirements. In September 2004, the redesign of the Reception Hall of the opera house was completed, but is now only rarely available for public inspection.
Retrieved from Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia
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