‘I ended up giving Bob Dylan a singing lesson’: 50 years of the Sydney Opera House
The 50th birthday of the Sydney Opera House is upon us. To celebrate, 50 artists share unique, special, and hilarious memories of their performances beneath the sails.
‘Wow, just wow. That sense of awe never fades. These days, whenever I drive towards the building, the excitement is palpable” - Marcia Hines.
“It’s hard to go past what happened in August 2018 when I ended up giving Bob Dylan a singing lesson.’’ - Lyndon Terracini.
“At one point, we were in the Green Room and Joan Sutherland walked past with music sheets in her hand and the biggest cream bun I’ve ever seen in my life.” - Carlotta, a founding member of Les Girls.
“My most memorable performance was in February 1979, the night I fell down a trapdoor.” - Kate Fitzpatrick.
This diverse collection of artists are talking about a place that unites them and, they hope, all Australians: the Sydney Opera House. They are among the impressive group of contributors to Transcendence: 50 Years of Unforgettable Moments at the Sydney Opera House.
As chief executive Louise Herron explains in her foreword: “These stories focus on the unique qualities that make performing at the Opera House such a transcendent experience.” .
This book is edited by Ashleigh Wilson, a former arts editor at this newspaper who works in strategic management at the Opera House. His brief to the 50 contributors was to pick just one moment at the Opera House which has resonated with them since. Some of the responses are wonderfully surprising, such as Fitzpatrick on her fall, which “left quite a lot of blood seeping from my left shin”, and baritone Terracini talking about his impromptu gig as Dylan’s voice coach.
Jimmy Barnes chooses a moment he was not on stage but in the audience, watching his Scottish compatriot Billy Connolly. “Back to my first home. A home that gave most of the people in this room, and the man we’d all come to see, a start in life.”
The playwright Louis Nowra recalls the time he was there to support his playwright uncle Bob Herbert on the opening night of his drama, No Names … No Pack Drill.
His uncle, an old-world man, wore a tuxedo and the paying guests mistook him for the cloak room attendant. “Well, in the old days,’’ his uncle told him, “we treated theatre traditions with respect, not like today’s scruffy barbarians.’’
Rhoda Roberts, actor, writer, curator and former head of First Nations programming at the Opera House, writes beautifully about Songlines in 2016, the first time Jorn Utzon’s white sails were lit with Indigenous art. “It was about the acceptance of our art on this Australian icon. Here was the Opera House, representing the horizons of our country, showing how we were all connected.” Timely words ahead of the October 14 Voice vote.
Film director Baz Lurhmann, who as an almost unknown 20-something staged a radical interpretation of Puccini’s La Boheme, remembers being nervous because Joan Sutherland was in the audience.
When Luhrmann and his Oscar-winning other half Catherine Martin decided to tie the knot, they did so at the Opera House. The shot of them kissing after their vows is one of the wonderful photographs spread throughout this well-produced hardback. Every memory comes with its own image.
“It’s a magical house,’’ Luhrmann writes. “You’ve really got to put on a good show to compete with the view and the harbour. I love everything about it. It’s eccentric, it’s romantic, it’s strange. It’s very Australian.”
Other contributors include photographer Bill Henson, conductor extraordinaire Simone Young, musician Paul Kelly, theatre director Barrie Kosky and comedian, musician, actor and writer Tim Minchin, who is unpredictably funny as always.
The last word, though, goes to ballet dancer David McAllister, who chooses his final night on stage in 2001. He’s the lead in the romantic ballet Giselle, which brings him full circle as he started his career, in a lesser role, in the same show in 1982.
“At the end, among all the streamers and flowers, I expected to be overcome with emotion and for there to be floods of tears. But as I stood there in the middle of the stage, looking out at my family and my friends, I just loved it.
“It was one of those nights where you think to yourself: this is it. I could die tonight and be happy.”
Stephen Romei is a writer and critic.
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