In 2003, Utzon was rewarded with the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. In 1960, he climbed the scaffolding and sang Ol' Man River to the construction workers as they ate lunch. Paul Robeson, baritone and activist, is generally credited as the first person to perform at the Sydney Opera House. The theatre was formally opened in 1973, but many unofficial performances took place earlier. In fact, we came close to ending up with an opera house very different from the one we know today.

Despite this, its construction was beset by problems, including cost overruns, a workers' strike, frequent design changes and the eventual resignation of its architect, Jørn Utzon. Sydney Opera House is one of those rare modern buildings that feels like it always has and always will be iconic. 'Imagine what this signifies for the singer: if one sings something bad, one notices immediately.' 'The theatre has the greatest defect: its acoustics are perfect!' he once complained. The theatre is frequently judged to have the best acoustics in the world, though Luciano Pavarotti, a perennial favourite there, wasn't a fan. It opened in 1908 with a production of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida. The architects (Francesco Tamburini, Vittorio Meano and Julio Dormal) were themselves European immigrants, and the building they designed is a kind of aesthetic summation of European history, with Italian, German and French styles all represented. The new theatre was meant to account for the tastes of these new Argentines, while also solidifying European cultural norms in the country. Teatro Colón, South America's premier opera house, is symbolic of turn-of-the-century Argentina, when the country was booming and waves of European migrants, particularly from Italy and Spain, descended on Buenos Aires. But the whole event spawned a persistent rumour that the theatre was built over a subterranean lake, a rumour exploited by Gaston Leroux for his 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, whose numerous adaptations have done more than anything to establish the Palais Garnier in the realm of popular culture. Garnier improvised a brilliant solution, creating a double-layered foundation and keeping the groundwater as a reservoir to use in case of fire. When asked what style his building was, Garnier replied briskly 'Napoleon III style', inadvertently coining an entire architectural epoch.ĭuring excavations, builders met an unexpectedly high level of groundwater which threatened to curtail construction. Drawing inspiration from Baroque cathedrals, Greek temples and Renaissance villas, he also introduced radical modern technologies such as steel and glass. His ambitious winning design was built with an extravagant, no-holds-barred eclecticism that flourished under Emperor Napoleon III. Eyebrows were raised when Charles Garnier, an unknown 35-year-old architect, won the competition to design Paris's new opera house in 1858.

Paris opera house dome