58 Fun Facts About Sydney Opera House

Which Danish architect designed the Sydney Opera House?

Jørn Utzon won the 1957 design competition but resigned in 1966 after months of hostility from a new state government, leaving other architects to complete the interiors.

Who formally opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973?

Queen Elizabeth II opened it without its architect present: he was invited but declined, writing that he could not be the government's guest while criticising one of its ministers.

In 1999 the Opera House's original architect agreed to produce what?

Design principles ended a 33-year rift: they were written to guide later changes to the building, and the first room rebuilt to his design reopened in 2004 under his name.

On which headland of Sydney Harbour does the Opera House stand?

Bennelong Point honours Woollarawarre Bennelong, a Wangal man kidnapped on the governor's orders in 1789 who became a go-between with the colonists and later sailed with him to England.

Until a channel was filled with rock in the early 1800s, Tubowgule, the Opera House's site, was what kind of landform?

A tidal island: high water cut it off from the shore, and the colonists burned its heaps of oyster shells, left by generations of Gadigal meals, to make lime for their first buildings.

What did Governor Phillip build in 1790 on the Opera House's headland for the Aboriginal man it is named after?

A brick hut, built at his request: the Wangal man had become the governor's go-between with the Eora, and in 1792 he sailed with him to England, among the first Aboriginal people to make the voyage.

What building was demolished in 1958 to clear the site for the Opera House?

A tram depot stood there, built in 1902 with mock battlements in homage to Fort Macquarie, the colonial fort it had replaced; the depot closed in 1955.

Which Sydney Symphony conductor lobbied for the Opera House and its harbourside site?

Eugene Goossens campaigned for the hall and suggested its harbour site, but a 1956 scandal over indecent photographs found in his luggage forced him to resign and leave Australia before a design was chosen.

Which New South Wales premier launched the Opera House design competition and authorised its construction?

Joseph Cahill had work begin in March 1959, before the design was finished, fearing that opponents might kill the project if he waited; he died in office seven months later.

Which ancient civilisation's temple platforms, seen by the architect on his travels, inspired the Opera House's massive raised base?

The Maya: in Mexico he was struck by how their stone platforms lifted people above everyday life and toward the sky, and he gave Sydney's concertgoers the same climb.

Which Finnish-American architect on the Opera House competition jury championed the winning design?

Eero Saarinen missed the start of judging; in a widely told story that a fellow juror later disputed, he pulled the winning scheme from a pile of rejects and declared it the clear winner.

The Opera House's roof shells are all cut from the surface of which shape?

A sphere: because every shell shares one curve, ribs of different lengths could be cast in the same moulds, ending years of failed schemes based on parabolas and ellipses.

What bonded the Opera House's precast roof segments?

Epoxy glue: the builders' engineers pioneered using resin to bond the precast units, and the roof proved the method for later concrete structures.

Roughly how many tiles cover the Opera House's roof shells?

About 1 million: the 1,056,006 tiles were not laid one by one at height; they were set face down into curved panels on the ground, and the finished panels were lifted onto the shells.

The Opera House's roof tiles were manufactured in which country?

Sweden: the Höganäs factory needed three years of development to get the finish the architect wanted, a glazed tile made of clay mixed with a little crushed stone.

Before he had ever visited Sydney, what did the Opera House's architect study to picture its harbour site?

Nautical charts: he pored over maps of the harbour at his desk in Denmark, and first set foot in Sydney only after his design had already won.

The Opera House's base and broad walkways are faced with panels of crushed granite in which colour?

Pink: the precast panels are faced with granite quarried at Tarana, in central New South Wales, giving the building an earthy base that sets off its white shells.

Where did Sydney's orchestra play before the Opera House?

Sydney Town Hall: the orchestra's chief conductor complained that the 1889 hall was too small and could not stage opera, the grievance that launched the campaign for an opera house.

The Concert Hall's pipe instrument holds what world record?

Largest mechanical tracker-action organ in the world: builder Ronald Sharp needed ten years, so the hall opened in 1973 without it and the instrument was not finished until 1979.

The Opera Theatre was renamed in October 2012 after which famous Australian soprano?

Joan Sutherland, 'La Stupenda', sang her farewell opera at the Opera House in 1990, in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots; the theatre took her name two years after her death in 2010.

The original architect's own 2004 tapestry in the Opera House honours which composer?

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is honoured in the 14-metre tapestry, woven in Melbourne for the first room rebuilt to the architect's own design, nearly forty years after he walked away from the interiors.

How did New South Wales raise most of the money to build the Opera House?

A state lottery: rather than draw on taxes, the government sold Opera House Lottery tickets from the late 1950s, and gamblers ended up covering most of the bill.

First estimated at $7 million, what was the Opera House's final bill?

$102 million was the total: the building had been promised for Australia Day 1963 and opened ten years late, at more than fourteen times its estimate.

Which Australian firm built the Opera House's roof shells, casting the concrete ribs in a factory on the site?

Hornibrook's engineer Joe Bertony designed the movable steel arch that held each rib until a shell could stand, working out its stresses in some 30,000 calculations by hand.

Which engineering firm was the Opera House's structural engineer from 1957 until its completion?

Ove Arup & Partners worked through at least a dozen roof schemes with the architect, and ran the shells' complex forces through some of the earliest computers used in structural design.

The 1965 election of which premier's government led to the Opera House architect's resignation a year later?

Robert Askin had been a vocal critic of the project in opposition, and once he won office his works minister withheld the architect's fees until the Dane quit.

Which Minister for Public Works accepted the Opera House architect's resignation in 1966?

Davis Hughes withheld the architect's fees, and when the Dane threatened to quit at a meeting in February 1966 he took the threat as a resignation and had a replacement team in place within weeks.

Which Australian architect took over the Opera House's design and finished its interiors after 1966?

Peter Hall led the team, with Lionel Todd and David Littlemore, that completed the interiors; he concluded the major hall could not serve both concerts and opera and made it a concert hall.

Who was the first person to perform at the Opera House, singing to construction workers at lunch in 1960?

Paul Robeson, the American bass-baritone and activist, climbed the scaffolding in 1960 and sang 'Ol' Man River' to the construction workers during their lunch break.

Which opera was the first performed in the Opera Theatre, on 28 September 1973?

Prokofiev's War and Peace got the honour by default: Peter Sculthorpe's Rites of Passage, commissioned for the opening, was not finished in time and premiered a year later.

The Concert Hall's first public concert, in September 1973, was devoted to which composer?

Wagner filled the programme, and Birgit Nilsson greeted the new building with 'Dich, teure Halle', the Tannhäuser aria in which the heroine hails a dear hall of song.

Which architecture award did the Opera House's designer receive in 2003?

The Pritzker Prize jury's 2003 citation called the Sydney Opera House his masterpiece and one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century.

In 2007 the Sydney Opera House joined which list?

The World Heritage List placed the Opera House beside the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids of Egypt while its architect was still alive to hear the news.

How many times did the Opera House's architect return to see the finished building?

Never: after leaving Australia in 1966 the architect did not return, and he followed later work on the building through his son Jan, who acted as his representative in Sydney.

Which bodybuilder won his final title inside the Opera House in 1980?

Arnold Schwarzenegger had retired after six straight Mr. Olympia wins, then stunned the sport by coming back for the 1980 contest in the Opera House's Concert Hall and taking a seventh title.

Which Irish rock band played a free 1978 concert on the Opera House steps?

Thin Lizzy played the free show, filmed for Australian television, with a stand-in drummer: Mark Nauseef filled in for Brian Downey, who sat out the tour.

Which world leader addressed a large crowd outside the Opera House in 1990?

Nelson Mandela, freed that February after 27 years in prison, was touring the world to rally support for sanctions against apartheid when he spoke outside the Opera House.

In 2003, two protesters painted what slogan in red on the Opera House's highest sail?

No War was daubed on the tallest sail by Dave Burgess and Will Saunders to protest Australia's part in the looming invasion of Iraq; both were convicted and served months of weekend detention.

Which musician curated the first Vivid Live programme at the Opera House?

Brian Eno curated the music and lit the sails with his own slow-changing artwork, 77 Million Paintings, launching what became Sydney's annual Vivid festival of light.

A 2018 petition opposed using the Opera House's sails to advertise what?

The Everest horse race barrier draw was projected onto the sails in October 2018 after Premier Gladys Berejiklian overruled Opera House chief Louise Herron; broadcaster Alan Jones had demanded Herron be sacked.

In the late 2010s, roughly how many people visited the Opera House site each year?

About 10 million a year came to the site, yet only around 1.4 million of them sat down for a performance: most visitors come simply to see the building.

Which breaststroke champion carried the Olympic torch to the top of an Opera House shell during the Sydney 2000 relay?

Samantha Riley stood on top of a shell holding the flame aloft before it left on its last leg to Stadium Australia, where Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron.

Which part of the Opera House was built first, as Stage I, from 1959 to 1963?

The podium went up first because the government rushed the start before the roof design was settled; its columns later proved too weak for the shells and had to be rebuilt.

Where was the Opera House's roof design tested before construction?

Wind tunnels at the University of Southampton were used to test scale models of the roof, establishing wind pressures on the shells and guiding the design of the tile fixings.

Which church near Copenhagen did the Opera House's architect design after leaving Sydney?

Bagsværd Church looks from outside like a cluster of plain farm buildings, but inside its white concrete ceiling billows overhead in vaults he modelled on banks of clouds.

The Opera House's architect grew up in the Danish port of Aalborg, where his father worked as what?

A ship designer: his father was the naval architect who ran the Aalborg shipyard, and as a schoolboy he helped draw plans and build models of new hulls, nearly training for the same career.

Which band played its 1996 'Farewell to the World' concert to a huge audience on the Opera House forecourt?

Crowded House chose the Opera House for what was billed as their last show, a charity concert delayed a day by rain, and closed the night with Don't Dream It's Over.

After leaving Australia, the Opera House's architect built his clifftop home, Can Lis, on which Mediterranean island?

Majorca: he fell for the island after leaving Sydney, built the house above the sea, named it after his wife, Lis, and spent most of his later years there.

Why did New South Wales scrap plans to light the Opera House sails for King Charles's coronation in 2023?

The cost, put at $80,000 to $100,000 each time, was the reason Premier Chris Minns gave, adding that the sails were lit too often; monarchists accused him of acting on republican sympathies.

What are the broad outdoor stairs rising from the Opera House forecourt called?

The Monumental Steps lead up from the forecourt to the level of the halls, and for outdoor concerts they double as a grandstand, with the audience seated on the stairs.

Which sport made its Olympic debut at Sydney 2000 with its events based at the Opera House?

Triathlon: in its first Olympic event, Switzerland's Brigitte McMahon edged away from home favourite Michellie Jones in the final metres to win by two seconds.

What fell from an Opera House stage onto a cellist in the 1980s?

A chicken: a production of Boris Godunov used live birds, and one walked off the stage and landed on a cellist, so a net was hung over the orchestra pit.

What were the perspex 'acoustic clouds' over the Concert Hall stage meant to fix?

A lack of early sound reflections was the problem: the ceiling was so high that musicians could not hear each other, so acrylic rings were hung over the stage; they were removed in the 2020–22 renewal.

The Opera House's air-conditioning plant was designed to be cooled by what?

Harbour water: Danish engineers Steensen Varming had the idea of circulating seawater to carry heat for both cooling and heating, and the system they designed is still running today.

Which artist's tapestry, commissioned by the Opera House's architect, was finally hung in the building in 2016?

Le Corbusier designed Les Dés Sont Jetés at the architect's request, but it spent half a century in the architect's own home in Denmark until the Opera House bought it at auction in 2015.

In 1788 the First Fleet colonists named the Opera House's headland after which animals they penned there?

Cattle: the few cows and horses shipped out from Cape Town were kept on the isolated point, which was briefly known as Cattle Point before it took its present name.

The Opera House is run by what kind of state-government body, set up specifically for it?

A trust: the Sydney Opera House Trust was set up by an act of parliament in 1961, a dozen years before there was a finished building for it to run.

Which American talk-show host flew 300 audience members to Sydney in 2010 and taped shows at the Opera House?

Oprah Winfrey sprang the trip on her audience as a surprise, but Australia paid: its government put up about A$3 million to bring the show over, betting the exposure would boost tourism.