The Grand Ol' Opry

The parental units made it to Sydney a few years before I did. Ma was attending an international conference so while she was listening to lectures and stuff, the old lad was left to explore the city by himself. Being a keen photographer he came home with armfuls of slides and we all got a lot of mileage out of the number of times he'd managed to squeeze the Opera House into the frame. Of course it wasn't until I was there myself, lining up a shot of Sydney's impossibly picturesque harbor, that I realized just how tempting it was to twist ever so slightly to one side and include the Opera House as well.

Every...single...time.

Sydney's Opera House has become such an icon of the land down under that it's hard to imagine there was a time, not so very long ago, when the locals were vehemently opposed to its very existence. Furthermore, given how its location enhances the beauty of this already almost perfect vista, it's astonishing that only a few decades ago, the site upon which it now stands contained nothing more tourist oriented than railroad shunting yards and the city's tram depot.

In the late 1950s the New South Wales Government established an appeal fund to finance the construction of the Sydney Opera House, and conducted a competition for its design. The commission eventually went to renowned Danish architect Jorn Utzon. It was his intent to evoke an image of a ship at full sail, (although more than one wag has remarked on the resemblance to turtles having sex) but what was especially interesting is that the design was arguably beyond the capabilities of engineering of the time. Utzon was forced to spend a couple of years reworking the design and it wasn't until 1961 he resolved the problem of how to build the distinguishing feature - the 'sails' of the roof.

The venture was plagued with cost overruns and there were occasions when the government was tempted to call a halt. By 1966 the situation - with arguments about cost and the interior design, and the Government withholding progress payments - reached crisis point and Utzon resigned from the project. The building was eventually completed by others in 1973.

During my first few days in Australia, the Opera House became a familiar friend, drawn every morning as I was, to its siren call. I often ate breakfast on its steps, lunch too, quite frequently. It was here I enjoyed my first Australian fish and chips (no vinegar, just lemon and 'flake' is apparently, 'shark'.) I read my first letters from home here after 3 weeks on the move and also had the alarming experience of being mobbed by a herd of pre-pubescent girls. It was only later I learned I'd inadvertently placed myself between them and a member of a boy-band called "New Kids on the Block". (I've never had the misfortune to find myself between a mother bear and her cub but I suspect it isn't dissimilar.)

I also enjoyed free concerts, heard political speeches, tried my hand at playing a didgeridoo (I failed) and on one memorable occasion, a buxom wench flashing her boobs for a photo with the opera house as a backdrop. Typically, I was facing the other way and missed it.

But for all the grandeur of the Opera House when viewed from the outside, it's not until one steps indoors that it's possible to realize just what an architectural marvel this is. No less than five theatres hang from the shells which make up the roof, like so much stage scenery. The Concert Hall and Opera Theatre are each contained in the two largest groups of shells, and the other theatres are located on the sides of the shell groupings. In addition there are three other restaurants, six bars, five rehearsal studios and numerous souvenir shops.

The Concert Hall seats 2,679 people and contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world with over 10,000 pipes. The Opera Theatre, with 1,547 seats, is the main performance space for Opera Australia and is also used by the Australian Ballet Company, while the three other theaters can seat over 1,000 people between them. Unfortunately, the concerts were well outside my backpacker's budget so I'll just need to make an excuse and go back again someday.

Australia has many more readily identifiable symbols; the red sand of its interior, the majestic monolith of Uluru, and of course, the ubiquitous kangaroo and I saw all of those over the next few months. But for an introduction to the lucky country, you can't go wrong with a photo of Sydney harbor.

Just make sure you remember to get the Opera House in it.