Backstage at the Opera House

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Rising at 5am on a misty grey morning, we caught the first ferry of the day from Manly over to Circular Quay in central Sydney, and made a quick dash round the waters edge to arrive at 6:45am at the Stage Door entrance to the fabulous Opera House. Why? To begin our specially arranged Backstage Tour of course!

Just about everyone in the Western World must be familiar with the iconic white sails of this splendid structure. Positioned perfectly to view from all angles on the approach to the main Sydney Harbour area, this is a building with its own fascinating story, from conception, to modern day continuous history making, with performers all around the globe envious of their counterparts fortunate enough to have entertained within its beautiful walls.

The Opera House design was never intended to represent Sydney or indeed Australia in terms of visual identity. This occurred by chance when a global competition to come up with a contemporary Opera & Arts venue in 1956 threw up a futuristic structural ‘one off’ by Danish architect Jorn Utzon. The work to build Utzon’s winning design was begun in 1959, with an estimated cost of $7AU million, however this spiralled enormously to a total spend of $102AU million at point of completion, with the first performance staged over a decade later in December 1972. There were, apparently, a number of significant challenges to realize a safe creation of the complicated sail structures. A change in Government half way through the build, applied heavy pressure on Utzon to rush completion, which led to his resignation of the build oversight. He left Sydney, never to return, and to this day, the famous architect has never seen the completed Opera House with his bare eyes.

Although pricey, at over $100AU per person, we were very pleased that we took this tour, as it featured a number of sights which we would never have been able to encounter on a normal visit. These included viewings of the star dressing rooms, behind the scenes look at the Orchestra pit in the actual Opera Theatre, a walk on stage at both the Opera Theatre and the Concert hall, a rest in the large Green room, and a really interesting walk round backstage to see the lights, trapdoors, stage manager work stations and other exciting magical workings just beyond the curtains. We’ve also learned some new theatre lingo;
• Prompt Side - To the performers left when they are on stage, looking at the audience.
• Opposite prompt - Opposite to the prompt side (funnily enough)
• Upstage - Back of the stage, furthest from the audience.
• Downstage - Front of the stage, closest to the audience.
• Dark theatre - No performance on in the theatre.

While we are in Sydney, the following shows are going on be on;
• Madama Butterfly Opera - which we are going to see on the 24th Jan
• Billy Connolly - we couldn’t get tickets as he was sold out in half an hour of going on sale.
• Elvis Costello & the Sydney Symphony
• Olivia Newton John
• Nigel Kennedy

There are lots of other shows on too over Jan & Feb, with rotations among the 6 amazing theatres, all of which are very different.

We were restricted in the amount of photos we could take during our visit due, apparently, to copyright of the theatre companies who operate productions, however we managed to sneak some in when Toni, our guide, wasn’t looking.

Bye for now,
Alan & Shaz. xxx

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Photos

Concert Hall stage
There had been a performance at New Year, and the stage was yet to be cleared. It looked as though there had been a great party.

Madama Butterfly score..
...in the Orchestra Pit at the Opera Theatre

Falstaff costumes
Backstage next to the dressing rooms

Shaz doing her tourist photo opportunity
This was one of the 'allowed' photos on the tour, where we were supposed to pretend that we're conducting the orchestra. Hmmmm.

Opera Theatre Orchestra pit
Alan was surprised at the quality of the equipment used (ie, not very up to date). Apparently its due for a revamp this year, however they are dependant on funds being provided by the Government, who own the theatre.

Drums
Our guide, Toni, is on the left. She was very good.

Instrument crates
Double base payers tend to leave their instruments on site as they are too bulky to carry round.

Concert Hall
This is the theatre that Billy Conolly will play.

Ceiling in the Concert Hall
..with enormous Polo Mints suspended from the roof.

Mr McCabe at the Opera House
This is taken from the Botanic Gardens

White Birch seats
The seats in all the theatres are made from this wood as it helps with the acoustics

The Narabeem
One of the ferries we've been catching between Manly & Sydney centre. It takes about 30 mins to cross.

Sparkling tiles on the Sails
Depending on the light, the sails can look anything from pure white, to yellow/beige.

Top of Harbour Bridge
OK, so the little people you can see on the top are doing a 'Bridge Walk'. This is a 3.5 hour trek over the bridge which you can take in groups of 12. We're currently trying to arange our own Bridge Walk for some time over the next 2 weeks.

Opera Bar, where we had breakfast after our backstage tour.
You can see the start of Circular Quay in the background.

Comments

[Gaz]

Hmm...
"Narabeem". I wonder if its called that cos it sounds like "Narrow Beam"? What do you think, Nautical Al?