Aria Kidding?

Question: American singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson wowed construction workers during their lunch break by singing Ol’ Man River at what famous opera house?

Answer: Sydney Opera House

While on a concert tour across Australia in 1960, American singer and activist Paul Robeson stopped by the Sydney Opera House, which was still under construction at the time. Climbing up the scaffolding, Robeson stood alone in the Australian sun and belted out a stirring rendition of Ol’ Man River from the 1927 musical Show Boat to a group of assembled workers on their lunch break—who watched in awestruck silence. It was the first live performance at Sydney’s legendary opera house, which wouldn’t officially open for another 13 years.

The irony of Robeson’s impromptu appearance is that it may have saved the opera house, whose future looked mighty bleak at the time. Infrastructure disasters and massive cost overruns were proving insurmountable. Even the architect saw the writing on the wall. Before long, he would quit the project, leave the country, and never return. But Robeson’s voice was so inspiring, it sparked a renewed commitment to completing the project. The local government decided to create a special lottery to pay for its construction—whose cost had risen astronomically.

Even with the renewed cash flow to pull the project out of bankruptcy, no one thought the opera house had a prayer. Now, of course, it’s considered one of the world’s most iconic structures—an architectural marvel that UNESCO described as “one of the indisputable masterpieces of human creativity, not only in the 20th century but in the history of humankind.” But wait until you hear what people were calling the opera house at the beginning ...

The strange and troubled origins of the Sydney Opera House

The idea for building a grand opera house and concert hall in Sydney was proposed in the late 1940s by acclaimed English conductor Sir Eugene Goossens, who had come to Australia to lead the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on a national tour. Unimpressed with the acoustics of the Town Hall in Sydney, he thought they needed their own world-class concert venue. Looking out from his office window at the tram depot at Bennelong Point, he believed he had located the ideal site for what quickly became his passion project. To get the ball rolling, the New South Wales government formed the Sydney Opera House Committee in 1954. Goossens, the only one with the knowledge and experience of the complex needs of the opera, was its most important member.

The first of many strange incidents in the story of the Sydney Opera House occurred in 1956. Goossens, who had just received his knighthood in the U.K., was detained upon his entry back into Australia. A search of his luggage revealed, among other things, smuggled pornography, compromising photographs, and rubber masks. An ensuing scandal involving his affair with Rosaleen Norton, an artist the tabloids dubbed "The Witch of Kings Cross," destroyed his career. Fleeing the country in disgrace under an assumed name, he never returned.

With Goossens out of the picture (you might say his goose was cooked), the committee announced an international competition for the design of the National Opera House at Bennelong Point on 15 February 1956.

Tell us what you really think—initial reactions to the winning design

The design competition for the Sydney Opera House resulted in 223 entries from 28 countries. The submission from Danish architect Jørn Utzon was initially rejected without a second glance by three of the four judges. One reason for the outright rejection was that Utzon’s design did not include a perspective from Sydney Harbour, which was a requirement of the competition.

But the fourth judge, Eero Saarinen, who had been out of town, decided to look through the reject pile to see if anything was missed. He loved Utzon’s submission and sketched two more perspectives to convince the other judges of its groundbreaking vision.

Not everyone held such a lofty opinion about the merits of Utzon’s winning design, however. The comments were not kind. A partial list compared the design as a “Danish pastry,” a “25th-century Bluebeard’s lair,” an “armadillo in concrete,” a “prehistoric monster,” a “disintegrating circus tent in a gale,” an “armadillo with rheumatism,” and an “angry swan leaning forward with raised wings.” Perhaps the most scathing comment came from world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who called the winning design “a canvas-topped barge trying to make sail out at sea in the wrong direction.”

Now comes the hard part ...

Construction work on the new Sydney Opera House began on March 2, 1959. Forecast to take four years to complete at a cost of $7 million, it soon became clear that those figures were simply a fantasy. The technical problems, vacillating public opinion, and political infighting combined to make the $7 million price tag balloon to more than $100 million—and the four years balloon to 14 years. 

When a BBC reporter visited the site in 1965, he struggled to find words to describe the problems in making Jørn Utzon's roof design a reality. "It was a score of towering shells. It was a cluster of seagulls spreading concrete wings. It was a huddle of sailing boats with billowing concrete sails," he said. "And it was an unmitigated bitch to build."

Things got so bad the following year that Jørn Utzon, the project’s chief architect, had enough. No longer receiving payment from the new local government, he felt the ongoing problems had already all but ruined his career and resigned. Packing his bags, he returned to Denmark and never came back—not even to see the eventual completion of the opera house with his award-winning design.

On October 20, 1973—seven years after Utzon’s resignation, 10 years overdue, and 14 times its original budget—the Sydney Opera House was opened in a grand ceremony by Queen Elizabeth II. Her speech touched on the technical difficulties that plagued the project: “I understand that its construction has not been totally without problems. But every great imaginative venture has had to be tempered by the fire of controversy. Controversy of the most extreme kind attended the building of the pyramids, yet they stand today—4,000 years later—acknowledged as one of the wonders of the world. So, I hope and believe it will be with the Sydney Opera House.” Utzon hadn’t been invited to the ceremony, and his name was never even mentioned.

The original vision of building an opera house in Sydney Harbour was to come up with a design that would reshape the world's view of Australia. To ensure that this goal was realized, the grand competition that was open to the architects of all the world had just one stipulation: “That nothing quite so remarkable should have been ever built before.” Most would agree that nothing quite like it has been built before—or since.

Some astonishing facts about the Sydney Opera House

• Window or aisle seat?—The Sydney Opera House is so big that eight Boeing 747s can fit wing-to-wing inside it.
• Raise the roof—The structure’s iconic roof is made up of 2,194 pre-cast sections weighing up to 15 tons each. They are covered in one million tiles that change color with the light made by the Swedish company Höganas.
• Better leave a trail of breadcrumbs—The opera house has 1,000 rooms including  3 restaurants, a café & espresso bar, and bars in the opera and theater. There are 7 different performing venues—the largest seats 2,679 people, and the smallest 210.
• Nice pipes—The grand organ housed in the Concert Hall of the opera house is the largest mechanical organ in the world. Made up of 10,154 pipes, it took 10 years to build.
• Let there be light—To keep the building properly lit, 15,500 light bulbs are changed at the opera house each year.
• Taking the temperature of the room—To ensure that the instruments for the orchestra stay perfectly in tune, the temperature inside the opera house is kept at precisely 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit at all times.
• Cage free eggs?—A net is installed above the orchestra pit of the opera house's main venue due to an incident in the 1980s. During an opera performance of Boris Godunov—which featured live birds—one of the chickens wandered off the stage and landed on top of a cellist. The Opera House thought it best install protective netting over the musicians to prevent any future foul play ...
• He’ll be baack—In 1980, Arnold Schwarzenegger won his last Mr. Olympia title in the halls of the Sydney Opera House’s orchestra. We believe he worked without a net.
• Robeson was no showboat—Those unfamiliar with Paul Robeson may not realize that he was once the most famous African American in the world. Before becoming a world-renowned concert singer, stage performer, and Hollywood actor, Robeson played football at Rutgers—and remains one of the greatest college football players in history. He also played in the NFL, he graduated from Columbia Law School, and is credited with integrating  Broadway, becoming the first Black man to play Othello in the U.S. A passionate supporter of Civil Rights, Robeson’s career was destroyed and his legacy forever tarnished  during the McCarthy era, when the singer’s activism brought the wrath of the American government down upon him, labeling Robeson “the most dangerous man in America.”
• His band was banned—Robeson’s contract stipulated that he could not give any free performances during his Australia tour. He was able to avoid any potential contract violation by performing with no musical accompaniment at the Sydney Opera House.
• This one’s personal—The troubled history of the opera house’s construction was made into a full-scale opera called The Eighth Wonder. First performed in 1995, the English-sung opera features lots of corrupt politicians and small-minded bureaucrats, and one visionary architect.
• Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?—In the most recent rankings of the top 10 most recognizable landmarks, the Sydney Opera House was ranked sixth in the world.

Behold the innovation of the Sydney Opera House when you join O.A.T. for A South Pacific Odyssey: Australia, the Outback & New Zealand.