Inner glow

On 31 December 2017, the performance hall of the Sydney Opera House, the Joan Sutherland Theatre, was ceremoniously re-opened following a renovation period of seven months. With its new stage machinery and enormously improved acoustics, the house is now excellently equipped for the coming decades.

With over 8.2 million visitors each year, the Sydney Opera House is one of the most frequented performing arts centres in the world and Australia’s foremost tourist attraction.

The Joan Sutherland Theatre (JST), integrated into the building, is home to the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet and the second largest of the opera house’s seven halls. And even if the world-famous shells of the Sydney Opera House still look freshly built, the strain of so much use was starting to show on the technical facilities inside the building. For one, it had been obvious for a while that after 45 years, the JST’s stage machinery would have to be completely replaced to ensure continued operational safety. “The Joan Sutherland Theatre is one of the most active theatres in the world, where some 330 opera, ballet and other performances take place each year. Its almost 50-year-old ‘motor’ has worked hard and now has to be replaced,” explained Louise Herron, AM, director of the Sydney Opera House.

To make best use of the theatre’s unavoidable temporary closure for renovation, the directors of the Sydney Opera House decided to carry out additional work in parallel. As well as a new lighting bridge and more barrier-free access, improvements to the orchestra pit and the acoustics in the auditorium topped the wish-list. Herron described the renovation programme as one of the most exciting periods in the history of the opera house and stressed the importance of modernization: “The renovation will ensure that the opera house has the necessary requirements to present the very best in the field of performing arts.