A Magical Evening at the Sydney Opera House

On Wednesday, we had one of the those special, memorable evenings. We had pre-booked a package event at the Opera House that included a VIP tour of the building, a 3 course gourmet dinner in the Guillaume at Bennelong Restauant, and a performance of the Sydney Symphony in the main concert hall. The orchestra was conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, a petite, 80+ year old Russian, who was on fire with energy. The program was called Legends of the Sea and included works by Jean Sibelius, Gabriel Faure and Claude Debussy.  The evening was an unforgettable experience.

The Opera House was magnificent. It is probably the most famous opera house in the world. In fact, it is two separate venues, the main concert hall for music (seats 2600) and a smaller hall for opera and ballet (seats 1600). There were a lot of problems with the construction of the facility. It took over 15 years to build (1958-1973), the cost ballooned from $7 Million to $105Million, the Danish architect who won the design contest quit half way through construction to return to Denmark and never saw the finished building. It has been classified as an UNESCO world heritage sight and can't be modified or changed. However, it has become the cornerstone of the Sydney brand around the world.

 The main theatre for music is the larger structure on the right,

with the smaller venue for opera and ballet on the left.

 The opera house dominates the Sydney harbour skyline

 The roof is covered with over a million, self-cleaning tiles.

 The sail-like design is so unique and powerful.

It is such a massive structure

The concert hall is actually a building, within a building. The massive white sail-like structure that you see from the outside is only a concrete shell

 The outside structure was made by layering multiple, pre-formed concrete slabs together

   

The stage before the concert.

 Underneath the two performance halls are massive basement storage and production centres.

Vladimir Ashkenazy and the orchestra taking their final bow