Romancing The Rock

Friday 28th September, 1973

Photo by Jacqueline Yong

Although this is somewhat recent history, it is important to Australia none-the-less. Today is the anniversary of the first public performance to be played at the Sydney Opera House. The Australian Opera performed Prokofiev’s War and Peace. The Sydney Opera House is now a tourist attraction for people from all over the world, with its unique architecture.

But, did you know there was another Sydney Opera House before this? The first theatre opened in a warehouse on the corner of York and King Streets in 1879, a popular house for comic opera and vaudeville. This Sydney Opera House had a relatively short life and was closed in 1900.

Fort Macquarie

It wasn’t until 1947 that the need for a new Opera House was realised. Then, it took until 1954 before a committee was formed. In 1955, the site at Bennelong Point (formerly the site of Fort Macquarie, built during Lachlan Macquarie’s time as governor in 1821) was chosen, and the year after that an international competition was opened for designs for the new opera house.

Jørn Utzon’s drawings won the competition and building finally began in 1959. But it wasn’t until 1973, after difficulties in funding each stage, that the theatre was finally completed and ready to be filled with the strains of sweet music.

Have you ever been to the Sydney Opera House? Been inside? Heard music played there? Let us know your experiences.