When people get bored of visiting natural places and want some sort of real entertaining performances like orchestra, dramas, plays etc that too along a sea side .Wow !!! Wonderful to imagine ,then there is such a place in the world that is the Opera House of Sydney, one of the well known performing centers.
Sydney Opera House
It is located on Bennelong point in Sydney , New South Wales State, Australia. It is environed on 3 sides by the Sydney harbour with Royal Botanic Garden on its adjacent side. The architect behind the design of this is “John Utzon” who was a Danish.
The view of the house from ferry or air is very impressive.The construction of Opera House began in the year 1959 and completed in 1973.
The building up of this project was divided into 3 stages.
Stage I : 1959-1963 — Construction of podium, a platform evoked above the surrounding level to give prominence.
Stage II : 1963-1967 — the shells or roofs were builts in the form of hemisphere.
Stage III : 1967-7973 — comprises interior designing and construction.
The opening ceremony was held by Queen of Australia, Elizabeth II on 20th October in the year 1973 in presence of huge crowd.The Sydney Opera House is an expressionist art of modern design .
The building has the following significant features.
Land area : 1.8 hectares (4.5 acres)
Length :183 metres (605 ft)
Maximum Width : 120 metres (388 ft)
It stood on 588 concrete wharves that sunk up to 25 metres below sea level. The power required to illuminate the house is equivalent to a town of 25000 people distributed over 645 kms .
Though the name looks like consisting of only the Opera theatre there are many other venues.
Concert Hall : It is west side of the shells with 2,679 seats, is the abode of 
Sydney Symphony orchestra and Sydney Opera House Grand Organ with 10000 pipes is the worlds largest mechanical tracker action body ever built and used by musicians.
Below the concert hall small venues like Playhouse, the Studio and Drama Theatre are located.
Bennelong Restaurant is present at one side of the steps of monument occupying much minor shells.
Beside the tiles of shells, glass walls at entrance the buildings exterior decoration with pink granite gives a grand look to the house. The interior is beautifies with off form concrete and varieties of wood.
Opera Theatre ,with a capacity of 1507 seats is proscenium theatre, a home of the Australian Ballet, a concert dance and Opera Australia, a company.
Drama Theatre, with a capacity of 544 seats is utilized by the Sydney Theatre Company.
Playhouse (398 seats), The recording Studio (400 seats), The Utzon Room ( 210 seats), a small multi-purpose venue, The Forecourt used for Live sites, special occasion events and a range of community events, five restaurants and four souvenir shops.It comprises of 1000 rooms.
Ceremonies, Social functions and ceremonies are held at Opera House.
The architectural style of Sydney Opera House , the venues and the performances held are amazing and extra ordinary. 3000 events are conducted every year and on an average 2 million people view the performances.
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