SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

Did the Sydney Opera House Tour on Thursday. For some reason I did not do that the last time I was here. Considering it is billed as the biggest tourist attraction in Australia with 9 million visitors a year that must have been a bit of an oversight!  I couldn't get a ticket for a tour until 2.30 so I had a walk through Hyde Park where the Sydney Festival has loads of activities on during January because of course it is still school holidays. I was amused to see the queue for the bouncy castle (actually bouncy Stonehenge) all with brollies for some shade. Then it wasn't a hardship to sit at a cafe with a cool drink and watch the Harbour. The Opera house was supposed to take 3 years to build but it took 16 because of the difficulty of constructing the roof.  After years of calculations and failed designs they simple built it as different sections of a huge sphere. They showed us diagrams of how it fits together like a giant puzzle. Each section is made up of huge concrete ribs which you can see from underneath. The roof is covered with self cleaning ceramic tiles. Inside there are no fancy decorations - all you see are the materials used to construct it. Wood,concrete ribs and the granite blocks of the main building.  The glass in the roof is angled so that you can view the harbour from inside and when you are on the balcony you can see yourself  reflected in the window. We were not allowed to take photographs inside except in one small theatre which is used for performances in the round. Two circuses were performing on alternate nights. they  can reconfigure the theatre for different types of show. I suppose our Concert Hall has copied the ideas. We saw the Joan Sutherland Theatre which is used for ballet and opera. It is the opera season at the moment and we saw them dismantling a set ready for another production. They don't use microphones in the theatre and so there is a different performance each night. Three different operas on each week and so the sets have to be changed daily. The sets are on wheels and pushed to the back of the stage where there is a big lift to take it below for storage until the next time. They have just finished building a tunnel under the Opera House which will enable big trucks to go right to the lifts under the building to load the equipment. Not sure if I can afford to go to a show though - tickets cost $200 - $300 dollars a time. Over 100 pounds! I came out at the bottom of the Opera House where there are loads of cafes and bars along the seafront. I liked the one called Sydney's Backyard where the bar was draped with undies etc like a washing line!

Pat has files to share with you on SkyDrive. To view them, click the links below. Sydney Opera House folder