Musical Destinations
Among the many cultural thrills the Australian city has to o er are some of classical music’s most impressive venues, discovers Clive Paget
Clive Paget surveys the riches of Sydney, Australia
Any way you approach it, the Sydney Opera House lives up to expectations. Whether you first glimpse the iconic sails as you approach through the lush Botanical Gardens, or you catch its myriad roof tiles shimmering across the blue water as your ferry chugs under the famous harbour bridge, it’s a breath-taking experience.
Sydney Harbour itself has been wowing Europeans since Captain Arthur Phillip sailed the First Fleet and its cargo of 732 convicts into Sydney Cove in 1788. Back then, culture – at least as the newcomers knew it – was a luxury few could afford, but with the abolition of transportation Sydney’s creative life gradually fell into step with mainstream European artistic movements. For a visual guide, the easily managed Art Gallery of New South Wales is a good place to start, and its well-curated collection of Aboriginal art is a reminder that to many, and especially to Indigenous First Australians, the British landing was nothing short of an invasion.
Sydney is a magical place all round. With ocean beaches on one side and harbour beaches on the other, tourists can bus, tram or ferry from one to the other with ease, while all the main points of artistic interest are within easy walking distance of each other. The same goes for exploring the historic Rocks area, the well-preserved heart of Victorian Sydney. ‘British visitors will feel something familiar about the warm welcome they’ll receive, but also something novel and a bit edgy, which is stimulating,’ is how Brisbane-born pianist Piers Lane puts it.
The Opera House may be a more modern invention, but the chequered history of Jørn Utzon’s grand design has enough acts of political skulduggery to fill
several books. Back in the 1940s, it was a twinkle in the eye of Eugene Goossens, then director of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, who was on the lookout for a larger venue than the late-victorian Sydney Town Hall. An international competition in 1957 awarded Utzon the project, but Goossens didn’t live to see it rise above sea level. Nor did the Danish architect, whose visionary sails proved an engineering challenge and bureaucratic nightmare, see his completed masterpiece either. Forced out in a 1966 political storm, he never returned to Australia.
It was at that point that government apparatchiks swapped the two halls: the 3,000-seater intended to be the opera theatre became the concert hall and opera had to make do with a 1,500-seater and a pit too small to accommodate works the size of Wagner’s Ring. Ironically, when it finally opened in 1973, it was an allwagner concert featuring soprano Birgit Nilsson that christened the concert hall.
Opera in Sydney thrived and now includes Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, an annual open-air event on a stage built over the water with the Opera House an evocative backdrop. It’s the brainchild of Opera Australia’s artistic director Lyndon Terracini, who describes it as ‘similar to Bregenz but with a much better view!’.
The city’s other musical powerhouse is the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a worldclass ensemble whose chief conductors have included Goossens, Nikolai Malko and Charles Mackerras. Over the last decade its plush, flexible sound has been honed by Vladimir Ashkenazy and David Robertson. Sydney-born Simone Young is to take over from 2022.