Sydney Opera House

An opera house is a theater building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other opera houses are part of larger performing arts centers.

The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It sits at the north-eastern tip of the Sydney central business district (the CBD), surrounded on three sides by the harbour (Sydney Cove and Farm Cove), and neighboured by the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007. It is one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings, and one of the most famous performing arts centres in the world.

The Sydney Opera House is a modern expressionist design,with a series of large precast concrete 'shells', each composed of sections of a hemisphere of the same radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares (4.5 acres) of land, and is 183 metres (605 ft) long and 120 metres (388 ft) wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 metres below sea level. Its power consumption is equivalent to that of a town of 25,000 people, and is distributed by 645 kilometres (401 miles) of electrical cable.

Performance venues and facilities

 

The Opera House houses the following performance venues:

1. The Concert Hall, with 2,678 seats, is the home of the Sydney Symphony, and used by a large number of other concert presenters. It contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world, with over 10,000 pipes.
   
   
2. The Opera Theatre, a proscenium theatre with 1,507 seats, is the Sydney home of Opera Australia and The Australian Ballet.
   
   
3. The Drama Theatre, a proscenium theatre with 544 seats, is used by the Sydney Theatre Company and other dance and theatrical presenters.
   
   
4. The Playhouse, an end-stage theatre with 398 seats.
   
   
5. The Studio, a flexible space, with a maximum capacity of 400 people, depending on configuration.
   
   
6. The Utzon Room, a small multi-purpose venue, seating up to 210. It is the only interior space to have been designed by Utzon, having been renovated in 2004 under his direction.
   
   
7. The Forecourt, a flexible open-air venue with a wide range of configuration options, including the possibility of utilising the Monumental Steps as audience seating, used for a range of community events, Live Sites, and special-occasion performances.