Its exterior sails are admired around the world but its interior has long drawn criticism from artists and directors.
Now one of the world's greatest opera directors has slammed the Sydney Opera House's main opera theatre as an inadequate space with "extreme" problems.
Scottish opera director David McVicar says the Opera House's theatre is 'inadequate'.
Scotsman David McVicar, knighted for his services to opera, is in Sydney rehearsing with baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes for a dark production of Don Giovanni opening later this month in the Joan Sutherland Opera Theatre.
McVicar has said the theatre was "perfect for Mozart", composer of Don Giovanni, but deeply flawed for other work.
Emma Matthews and Giorgio Caoduro in Rigoletto, a triumph for Opera Australia in the Joan Sutherland Theatre.Credit: Branco Baica
"I think they thought about the outside before they thought about the inside," he said. "The problems of the Joan Sutherland are extreme. It’s a very quirky space, it is inadequate for opera, it just simply is."
Set within the smaller of the Opera House's two main sails, the 1507-seat theatre has weathered decades of criticism: backstage is said to be too small and cramped, and the front of house space too small for great acoustics. In 2011, a Limelight magazine survey of 200 performers, critics and audience members ranked it last for acoustics among Australia's 20 major concert spaces.
It was a politician, not an architect or musician, who decided opera would belong in the smaller sail, leaving the theatre with a tiny orchestra pit. Former NSW premier Robert Askin, a vocal critic of the Opera House project, made the call a year after architect Jorn Utzon quit the project in 1966.
Stage designer Brian Thomson, frustrated by the "miniscule" wings – which make some elaborate sets impossible to get on stage – and muffled sound, has gone so far as to call for a new venue. He told Time Out Sydney magazine last year that a new theatre should be built into the sandstone wall opposite the House's stairs.
Opera Australia star soprano Emma Matthews, fresh off a stint on the Joan Sutherland stage in Rigoletto, would not go so far. She described the theatre as "the greatest place to sing in the world", and has performed there more than 400 times.
However, she felt "it can be improved, definitely".
"There are problems sometimes with hearing the [orchestra] pit from the stage," she said. As for the backstage storage area, it was "totally chockas".
Opera Australia artistic director Lyndon Terracini, a former singer himself, defended the theatre, saying many opera houses around the world had worse orchestra pits.
"It's a great venue to play in," Terracini said. "A major international conductor said to me last week, 'This is a good theatre, you can hear the singers well, you're close to the action, you feel part of it'."
He estimated it would cost at least $1 billion to overhaul and expand the theatre.
The Opera House has already begun spending $13.7 million in government funding to develop a master works plan for its "decade of renewal".
Sydney Opera House chief executive Louise Herron said the plan would tackle "the known constraints" of the Joan Sutherland Theatre "to ensure we meet the expectations of 21st century artists and audiences".
For Sydney Conservatorium of Music associate professor and Fairfax Media opera critic Peter McCallum, the theatre's faults are often exaggerated.
"It is very difficult for singers and orchestra to get into that intuitive groove where everyone is listening and responding," he said. "Nevertheless the Rigoletto performance at the start of the season showed how well these things can be overcome with a good conductor."
McVicar was sanguine he could overcome the space's limitations.
"As I get to know the Joan Sutherland Theatre, I think I’ll grow to love it or I’ll grow to understand it," he said.
His Don Giovanni opens – in the Joan Sutherland Theatre – on July 25.