Now, between the six of us we all had different things in mind for the day. Some wanted it to spend it mostly in the shopping district, some wanted to simply relax and enjoy the harbour atmospheres. Wilfrido and I wanted to tour the Sydney Opera House - I mean, it may be a very long time before I return here, or maybe never. And I can't leave without seeing the inside of the Opera House. We had contemplated getting some tickets to a smaller show for $35 dollars. That way we'd be able to see an actual show (it was a ballet, actually), but if we did that we'd only be able to see one room. We wanted to see it all, so we purchased tour tickets online for only $25 each.
Besides the tour, we had to fill up the rest of the day too. Wilfrido and I decided that we wanted to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, to be able to say that we've walked the length of one of the icons of Australia. Also, there is a very identifiable theme park just on the other side of the bridge: Luna Park.
Our opera house tour tickets were good for any time, and we decided to start with that, so we headed back to the opera house. One familiar free shuttle ride and we were there. The start of the tour was in the garage-like tunnel beneath the opera house. The opera house was set on a podium with several staircases to climb it (mainly, there is a primary large staircase in the front). If you did not climb the steps in front, and instead walked along the side, below the opera house, there was a large tunnel going directly beneath it.
Anyway, the tour was great, even better than I had hoped. If you ever go to Sydney, take the tour. The tour guide had a headset on with a wireless transmitter, and each of us were given headsets to wear as we walked around, letting us hear everything he was telling us without needing to be right next to him at all. This also came in handy when we were inside performance halls and people were actually practicing, he could talk really quietly and we could all still hear him. Once we had the headsets, we walked out from under the opera house and walked along the side of it as he gave us general information about it.
The tour was extremely informative, and of course I'm not going to give all of the information I can remember. But I'll give you some really cool key facts. The entire construction process began in the early 1950s, when a design competition was called for. Architects submitted designs from over 30 countries, and the winning design that stands today was actually in the reject pile initially. During the judging process, the design was rescued from the pile near the end, and declared the winner.
The opera house is actually two major buildings, that sit beside each other long-ways. From many angles it looks like one building, but it is not.
Each of the two buildings hold a major performance hall: the larger one (on the right, pictured above) holds the concert hall, where orchestras and other musical events are performed. The concert hall seats nearly 2,700 people. Directly beneath the concert hall are three much smaller venues. Despite being directly below, the rooms are acoustically separated, and you cannot even hear a full orchestra while they play in the concert hall directly above you. In the other building is the theater, with a stage more suited for performances such as plays and ballets, holding a total of over 1,500 people. The floor of the stage is a large elevator, ideal for changing sets, moving equipment in and out for performances, etc.
Additionally, each building is really a building within a building. For example, imagine the opera house, which is a traditional rectangularly shaped room. On top of this building are then the outer shells, there for aesthetics and design. The inner buildings are designed to be acoustically ideal for the types of performances they are holding, the majority of the concert hall being constructed of Australian woods for this reason as well as the decor. The outer shells, on the other hand, are structurally separate, and covered with Swedish panels that self-clean in the rain. In fact, since it's construction, the exterior has been cleaned only once (excluding the glass, which is cleaned regularly). From a distance the outer shells appear uniformly white, but the tiles are in fact smaller and patterned.
The building is also fantastically lit up for many events, in fact was going to be covered in a light pattern the very next weekend! It's too bad we didn't visit Sydney a week later! Here are some examples of ways they have displayed the opera house at night for past events.
When the tour started I asked about what the shapes of the outer shells were meant to be. He said that he's heard several interpretations: sea shells, the opening of a whales mouth from the front, fins, waves, etc. The tour guide said that there's not exactly one answer, but that the architect meant to reference water in the shape, which it does. When you look at the building, you most likely think of something water-related first. He noted that even the glass uses the water around it. Several portions of the exterior glass is angled to show the water around the opera house when you look at it.
With all of that said, we started the tour by entering the larger building first, and going into one of the smaller studios directly below the concert hall called the Studio.
This room he described as an extremely multi-purpose room. Seating arrangements and stages are frequently altered drastically. Lighting equipment is able to change the atmosphere drastically, as well as a great deal of equipment to accommodate hanging equipment or even people. He said that events for children or elementary schools are held in here sometimes, or expletive/mature shows. The tour guide gave some interesting examples of shows that are performed in here that involve drag queens, nudity and profanity.
We were explicitly told not to take any pictures in any of these rooms. So I did my best to hide that I was definitely taking pictures. For that reason they're not the best quality.
After this, we headed back out the way we came and continued walking along the base of the patio towards the rear of the building, to the point furthest out into the water. Here there was a smaller set of stairs heading up to where we would enter the main building.
Note we entered around this back entrance. You can also enter either building by going up the main staircase at the front and going past the restaurant, or you can even go under the tunnel where our tour started, enter doors and come up from underneath the opera house.
After climbing the steps we entered into this large room.
Sometimes professional events are held in this room itself. By taking staircases up from here you may access the upper level seating of the concert hall. Or, you can take some staircases down from here to enter the concert hall at lower levels. Additionally, there is a bar located here as well. This was the first time I had entered the opera house, and the interior was just as impressive as the exterior, if not more. The exterior of the building was almost always glass, with the interior using smooth wood paneling.
After more information on the building we headed up and into the concert hall itself. I really wanted to take a nice picture here, but he was watching me like a hawk. So this is the best picture I could grab without him noticing.
When we entered, a full orchestra was actually practicing! We were able to stay in the room for a few minutes and just listen to the orchestra play various parts of their act, cut, repeat, etc. It really was amazing. We were very lucky to tour at the very time a few orchestra was playing, and listen to them. I can now say I have heard an orchestra perform in the Sydney Opera House.
Here is a picture of the opera house I have found online, so you can get a better idea of how amazing it is.
The majority of the entire concert hall is made of a few Australian woods - even the seat themselves and armrests are made of it. In the wall above and behind the stage you can see the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ - the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world... whatever that means. It consists of over 10,000 pipes, the smallest of which is smaller than the last section of your pinky.
The tour guide told us the incredible span of events that take place in here. Of course there are orchestras and concerts, but he also told us of movie viewings that take place in here. For example, the tour guide attended a showing of The Lord of the Rings. Except they remove the music from the movie, and a live orchestra plays the music to each of the scenes live. I would love to see that.
After a few minutes in here, we exited, headed down a flight of steps and exited the entire building into the area between the two opera house buildings.
We walked right in between the two buildings and entered the other. The interior of this building was similar but a bit less grand - I seemed to have taken few photos in here! We entered the theater though where I did grab a picture from where we sat.
The tour guide gave us some information about this room, including that you can see shows in here for $35 from the area I was sitting just then. This is also the theater that has the elevator-floor for quickly and discreetly changing sets behind a curtain. While we were here, dancers were practicing for a ballet performance that would be showing that night.
After exiting this room we were taken outside to watch a video (giving information most of which I already covered) before concluding the tour and exiting the front of the building, onto the main steps by the restaurant. The tour was perfect, and I was really glad I had gotten to go inside the Sydney Opera House.
It had only been a 30-45 minute tour, so we were still ready to hit the other destinations we had in mind. Right after the tour, Wilfrido and I made our way around the harbour and onto the road leading to the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the opposing side of the harbour.
The bridge has a walkway that spans its length, so we were able to walk across the entire bridge. Near the start of the walk across, though, there was an area that offered a perfect place to take pictures of the harbour and opera house.
We continued on, crossing the entire bridge.
While we were crossing the bridge, we got some more pictures of the harbour and opera house. Remember the picture I posted a bit earlier on this post, that showed where the tour started, where we entered the building, etc.? I had taken that picture from the bridge.
When we finally crossed the bridge, we took a flight of stairs off of it and immediately made a large left u-turn, heading to Luna Park. See the second photo in this post for an idea of where we were heading.
While heading to Luna Park, we were given perfect views of the bridge we had just crossed.
Finally, walking back down to the water on this side of the bridge landed us right at the entrance of Luna Park, to the very identifiable large mouth opening.
The theme park was open but entirely dead on this Monday. It was a little eerie, but we still walked throughout it to check it out. Nothing really outstanding, but a theme park none-the-less. For those of you that don't know, Luna Park is a name shared by several parks around the globe. There is even a Luna Park in Melbourne, Coney Island, and Los Angeles. I'd look up information on if they're owned by the same company and such, but I'm far too tired of typing at this point.
The theme park was right on the water, and we had been walking for a really long time to cross the bridge, so we took a break here, watching the boats and looking at schools of fish in the water below.
After a really nice, long break we started the walk back to the south side of the bridge.
It was now the end of our trip - Wilfrido and I needed to meet up with the others and get ready to head back to the airport. So we did just that, we made our way across the bridge, got a shuttle back to Hyde Park, and met with the others. We grabbed a bite to eat, got our bags out from the hostel's storage room, called a cab, yada yada.
Ultimately this was another one of the best trips I had while in Australia, and finished my major bucket list items of things to do while here. I was able to see a ton of the city, hear an orchestra perform in the opera house, cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge, visit both Manly Beach and Bondi Beach, party at Kings Cross, go to the top of the Sydney Tower, and more. It was an incredibly successful trip!
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