TRANSCRIPT
The Sydney Opera House is having a birthday party.
While she looks much younger than her 50 years, the World Heritage-listed building is an architectural and cultural landmark.
To celebrate, a weekend of free events is an invitation to locals and tourists alike to discover - or rediscover - the Australian icon, a building that defied conventions and tested the limits of engineering and design.
The Sydney Opera House has hosted some of the greatest, from Queen Elizabeth the 2nd at its opening on the 20th October 1973, to towering world figures like Nelson Mandela.
The Sydney Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, who beat 232 entries from around the world in a 1955 design contest.
It was dubbed a building that defied conventions and tested the limits of engineering and design.
The Opera House was over budget, completed a decade late, and at the time controversial - with critics slamming it as “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Director of Programming at the Sydney Opera House Fiona Winning says in modern times it is “everyone’s house”, open to all.
"Lots of people come down and walk around the site or maybe they've been to a show in one of the venues and the important thing I think for our birthday is to invite people in to see all through the building but also to see artists performing in the building and to see the John Coburn tapestry, the curtain of the sun in the Joan Sutherland theatre and to have an experience of what actually happens here as well as celebrating its architecture."
Ms Winning says the site is significant for First Nations Australians.
" This site right on the harbour was a very significant site. We are in the process of engaging more and more with First Nations communities about the meanings of this site and it's been very significant to have as part of our birthday festival Megan Cope do a project called 'Whispers' and that is really looking at the history of middens that were all around the harbour, including on this site, and the beauty of re-remembering these middens in sculptural forms all around the precinct. So that has been one example of the ways in which we want to engage with the First Nations stories of this site."
As part of the festivities, the venue is hosting the world premiere performance of Bark of Millions, a rock opera and drag spectacle celebrating queerness.
It features British-Nigerian artist Le Gateau Chocolat.
"It’s an embrace of something I feel I know. But there is still wonder when you arrive here because it is an architectural feat of magnificence."
The first person to perform at the Sydney Opera House was black American bass baritone, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.
In 1960, he performed a rendition of the Showboat tune "Ol' Man River" to construction workers.
To mark this milestone birthday, the Sydney Opera House is holding an open house weekend where over 37,000 people are expected to attend in celebration.
