The Sydney Opera House is an architectural wonder and a national treasure. They even made an opera here that's called the 8th Wonder of the World. It sure is beautiful; you could sit for hours looking at it and the bridge. It's an incredible experience being here- you almost have to pinch yourself that you're seeing all of this:
There's quite a story behind the building of this structure. It was built in the 1960s with a planned budget of $7 million but went way over at $102 million. It got to a point that the Aussie government stopped payments to the architect to try to control the spending- he left the project all together and it was completed by a totally different firm. There are actually five theatres in total- the Concert Hall (with a seating capacity of 2679, a bit larger than Roy Thomson) and then the Opera, Drama, Playhouse and Studio Theatres. This is one of the top tourist attractions in Australia. Over two million watch performances in the five theatres each year.
The building has 'shells' that make the sides and ceilings of the structure:
Though the shells appear uniformly white from a distance, they actually feature over a million tiles in two colours: glossy white and cream:
Believe it or not, there are over 1 million tiles shipped from Sweden that make up the roofs. From start to finish, it took over 10,000 builders to complete the structure.
We saw a play here- it was a revival of a 100 year old french farce called 'A Flea in her Ear' with sex, revenge and plain old comedy. It was fun to watch but the experience was surreal. Being in the Opera House watching a performance had a feeling that this was something very, very special.
Not to be outdone, we came out of the theatre to see the Sydney Bridge lit up:
Sydney is certainly a fun, stunning city and we're having a blast!
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