Sydney Opera House and show

J9 started the day early with a workout at our hotel gym which is open 24 hours a day. When she returned, we went to breakfast where we spent some time researching information on creating blogs. (every day is a school day 😀) Then we walked to the Sydney Opera House where we had a tour scheduled at noon to learn about the facility and the current shows available. The creation of the Opera House is quite interesting:
The design was an international competition: 233 designs were submitted from 28 countries.
Danish architect Jørn Utzon was the winning architect behind the Opera House project.
The original cost estimate (in 1959) to build it was US$7M
Construction was expected to take 4 years; it took 14. This was due to a combination of creative- and political-disagreements combined with the complexity of design and structural solutions.
There are more than 1 million roof tiles over the structure; the tiles were made in Sweden!
The Opera House was (finally) opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1973
The Opera House is not just one but actually six performing arts venues: the main concert hall (2,679 seats), the Joan Sutherland theater (1,507 seats), the Drama theater (544 seats) and the Playhouse (398 seats). There's also a studio theater with 280 seats. (Our tour only took us through the main and Sutherland venues.)
Arnold Schwarzenegger won his final Mr Olympia body building title in 1980 at the Concert Hall
After the tour, we looked at the schedule to see what/who was playing. We were told there was a possibility that some performances might be discounted if we presented our tour tickets. Fortunately the performance we wanted to see (Australian Pink Floyd) fell into this benefit! For a tribute band, the show was incredible experience with Pink Floyd's music resonating beautifully in the iconic venue, leaving us impressed by the wonderful sound quality at the Sydney Opera House.Read more