The urgency was also underlined by the fact that the first performance at the Sydney Opera House occurred long before the building had even been finished. Its construction was a bold, visionary exercise in nation-building by a young, largely immigrant nation looking to define itself. The Opera House was born of an urgent need for new creative expression.

To others, its perfection was forever compromised by the manner of its completion.īut on 20 October a building conceived with vast ambitions - nothing less than to “help mould a better and more enlightened community”, in the words of then New South Wales Premier Joseph Cahill - a building that some would say had already begun to do that work during the travails and controversies of its construction - began to assume its destiny. Some had feared that the Sydney Opera House might never be finished. It was a day that brought to a conclusion the saga of the building’s conception, design and construction, a saga in which controversies and politics upended what had seemed for many years as idealistic a quest for architectural perfection as had been seen in the post-war world.

The Queen’s words could not have been more appropriate to the occasion. Ben Blakeney, a direct descendant of Bennelong, appeared silhouetted at the apex of one of the high roof sails to welcome the public to the Opera House.

Stoughton opera house opened