The Guardian 2 April, 2008
Another act in the Opera House saga
Peter Mac
Last week several major planning or redesign schemes for Sydney were unveiled. One of them involved abandoning big operatic performances at the Opera House, and constructing a new opera house nearby in the Botanic Gardens. Its designer, respected Sydney architect Ken Wooley, claims that a new structure could provide bigger audience space, improved access and performance.
It’s quite true that there are shortcomings in the performance of the Opera House as it exists. However, despite statements to the contrary, there is no way that a whole new opera house could be built for less than the cost of upgrading the existing building. Moreover, placing another building as suggested in the pristine setting of Australia’s most famous building is a recipe for aesthetic disaster. The new building would inevitably appear as either a poor relative or a bumptious newcomer, and would desecrate the Botanic Gardens and obscure the eastern view of the Opera House.
It would also set a precedent for the invasion of NSW public parks and gardens by new building developments. That’s very dangerous for a state in which private developers have a remarkably close relationship with the current government.
Inspired design, gross interference
The Sydney Opera House was designed by Danish architect, Joern Utzon. The design was selected from a large number of entries in an international design competition launched in 1955 by the then ALP Government in NSW.
Sydneysiders were very excited about Utzon’s design, especially in comparison with the very pedestrian efforts of his competitors. However, the project’s construction costs rocketed, as has often been the case in major government construction projects with novel design and unfamiliar construction.
Despite this, Utzon maintained an excellent relationship with the Labor Government. However, in 1965 the newly-elected Liberal Government sought every opportunity to discredit the design and to smear Utzon’s reputation. They failed to provide him with adequate professional resources to support his work, and finally refused to pay his fees, forcing him to return to Denmark.
As a result, a huge number of changes in materials, construction and design were made to the works under construction. Of these, by far the most damaging was the decision to swap the locations of the Opera theatre and the Concert Hall.
This decision was facilitated by the Liberals’ open hatred for the previous government, an attitude which encouraged a pervasive and corrosive disdain for Utzon’s brilliant concept. The decision greatly limited the opera audience capacity, a failing which has dogged the entire history of the building since its opening in 1970, and which finally prompted Wooley’s suggestion for a replacement venue for major operatic performances.
The decision also involved a huge blow-out in the cost of the works. Utzon usually gets the blame for the runaway cost of the project, but the decision to change the Opera Theatre’s location meant that works which had already been carried out to the two performance spaces and their adjacent facilities had to be scrapped and reworked. The massive, and exquisitely complex stage machinery, which had already been constructed, was ignominiously dumped. It sat for years in a forgotten city yard, and is said to have finally been used by Sydney’s Long Bay prisoners as scrap metal to be cut up in welding classes.
In 1998 the aged Utzon agreed to act as consultant on a new project. Utzon and Sydney architect Richard Johnson aim to transform the Opera Theatre so that it is more in keeping with Utzon’s original design, has superior access and vastly improved acoustic performance.
This initiative will go some way to rectify the injustice done to this wonderfully talented architect, and the works will help to realise the potential of this truly inspired building.
The Opera audience
In the northern summer of 1979 I attended a wonderful afternoon performance of Khachaturian’s ballet Gayane at a minor theatre in Leningrad, as it was then known. The members of the audience were predominantly ordinary working class people. During the noisy and cheerful intermission I was reminded of Saturday afternoon at the movies back in Sydney during my childhood.
Soviet citizens were used to relatively easy access to such performances, because culture was regarded as a necessity, not as a luxury, and opera and ballet were well subsidised. However, to stage such an immaculate event today in Australia, and to the same high level of performance, would entail production costs which would render it inaccessible to most ordinary Australian citizens. In turn, this inaccessibility robs most working people of acquaintance with a potentially wonderfully uplifting area of culture. It also encourages the incorrect view that opera and ballet are decadent and elitist activities reserved for the very rich.
The Australian Opera has recently commenced broadcasting live TV performances of opera productions, to be screened in the surviving country cinemas around NSW. This extraordinary initiative will not only give a new lease of life to the cinemas, but will also help to ensure that opera, that grandest of human musical forms, may reach ordinary working people and enrich their lives.