2 February 2025

After over 24 hours of travel, we arrived in Sydney via Singapore Sunday night. We managed to sleep alright, despite the 11-hour time difference, and started our first day with a delicious breakfast at our hotel. Our room has a wonderful view of the Sydney Harbor, with both the bridge and the Opera House.

This morning we toured the Sydney Opera House. We learned that it hosts over 11 million visitors between its tours and shows each year; and 1,800 performances across its six venues.

But ceremonies, gatherings, and celebrations have taken place on this site long before colonial settlers arrived. What is now named Bennelong Point was known as Tubowgule to the Eora Aboriginal people and custodians of the land, the Gadigal.

Over the years, the site served several purposes. Following the post-WWII population boom, interest in a premiere performing arts facility grew until in 1956, the then-Premier of New South Wales announced an international competition to design a new opera house in Sydney. The winner was a design by little-known Danish architect Jorn Utzon.

Construction began in 1959 and took over 16 years and 10,000 employees to build. From the outset, the project encountered engineering challenges. By 1965, a rift had grown between Utzon and the architecture firm. A new government did not improve things, and ultimately, Utzon was forced out. 

A young architect named Peter Hall accepted Uzton’s former role. As you can imagine, Hall was under great pressure to finish the building as quickly and with as little cost as possible without increasing expenses further. The new team was expecting to work off of Utzon’s designs but had been left a scant few sketches, so they had an even larger project ahead than they expected when they took it on.

When the building was completed in 1973 – ten years behind schedule – it included a complete redesign of the concert hall to focus solely on the requirements of the symphony orchestra rather than the original multi-purpose space.

However, they have managed to host a variety of performances in the venue, including the musical Elf. They even held boxing match in 1982, though they haven’t done so since as a brawl broke out among the spectators, who rushed the stage. You can find videos of it online.

The concert hall:

On our tour, we got to see the concert hall, which has a pipe organ with over 10,135 pipes (only 100 of which you can see), and the Joan Sutherland Theatre, which alternates between ballet and opera seasons.

Because of the shell shape, the stage is one of the smallest around. Opera stages are typically quite large to store the sets needed for each dramatic scene, so the architects had to build storage space below with the ability to raise sets onto the stage. The Sutherland Theatre is named for the renown opera singer and the first Australian to win a Grammy, Joan Sutherland.

The Sutherland Theatre:

Back in the day, there was an opera with live animals and one of the chickens walked off the stage and landed in the lap of a cello player. When there was a brief pause in her music, the cellist threw the chicken back on the stage and the audience thought it was part of the show.

We didn’t realize this before the tour, but the roof has tiles – over a million, in fact. During some performances over the year, the orchestra is projected onto the tiles for free public concerts.

Over 30 years after the building was finished, Jorn Utzon and his son agreed to create design principles for updates to the building. This includes almost everything you could think of, from structural elements down to details like the rope stands set out for queues.

For those who might travel to Sydney at some point, we recommend the tour for almost anyone. It’s 60-90 minutes, includes ample opportunity to sit, and incorporates history, architecture, and culture for the city’s most iconic building.

After the tour, we wandered around the botanic gardens and spotted some interesting birds. I made my way to the Museum of Contemporary Art but unfortunately, all but two exhibits were closed so I enjoyed a chicken schnitzel sandwich at the cafe and then joined Spenser at The Strand Arcade – a Victorian-style shopping hall with lots of cafes and shops. We walked around Sydney for about an hour and a half and then rested at the hotel. 

We had a light dinner before seeing Great Opera Hits. The performance was a good introduction to opera, as it was only 90 minutes and showcased pieces from some of the most well known operas, including Carmen, La Boheme, Tosca, and La Traviata. The performers provided context around the songs and information about opera in general. They were very entertaining and we enjoyed the show, though Spenser said he was not particularly interested in seeing another opera in the future. I’m interested in seeing a full opera at some point, though probably one on the shorter side (on average, they are 2-3 hours).

Spenser at dinner:

Well, we are about to head out for day 2 so we’d better wrap up. Hope you are all doing well!