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Decade of Renewal

News, videos and features about the Opera House’s ten-year Renewal program

Discover the stories

Discover the stories of our decade of renewal, watch videos of the building's transformation and explore galleries of the construction journey.

Stories

“Rebirth and resurrection”

Who better to help reopen the heart of the Opera House than William Barton? The celebrated Kalkadunga musician estimates he has played the venue over 300 times. This week, with clapsticks made from wood salvaged from the stage, he'll perform with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in a triumphant return to the Concert Hall.

In it for the long Hall

The Opera House’s biggest venue has been closed for two years, yet behind its shuttered doors the beat goes on. The hum of thousands of excited concert-goers has been replaced with the buzz of thousands of workers, busy future-proofing the venue for decades to come.

Work begins to transform Concert Hall for new era

Better sound, better access and more ambitious performances will be enabled by a $150 million upgrade and renovations.

Preserving the Grand Organ

Each of the 10,244 pipes will be cleaned by hand – it's a tricky job.

The work that makes magic: Renewing the Joan Sutherland Theatre

One of the world’s great performance venues, the Joan Sutherland Theatre is being renewed for the next generation of artists and audiences.

Testing the Concert Hall’s acoustic reflectors

Work is underway to make the Opera House sound as good as it looks. Meet the acousticians solving a 40 year-old problem.

Birds eye view of Concert hall in Sydney opera house.

Fine-tuning the acoustics of the Joan Sutherland Theatre

What makes a concert sound good? Here's how our acousticians did it.

Restoring the Coburn Tapestries

John Coburn was at the height of his fame when the artist was pitched to architect Peter Hall to design the Sydney Opera House theatre curtains in 1969. Hall had taken over from Danish architect Jørn Utzon and was ushering the building towards completion.

A women assessing the Tapestry cloth in a warehouse.

Video gallery

Image gallery

The beginning, middle and end of the Sydney Opera House doughnuts

The former acoustic stage reflectors, commonly referred to as ‘doughnuts’ were an iconic backdrop for Concert Hall performances for almost 50 years.

During our decade of renewal, they were removed and replaced to make way for acoustic upgrades, however this is not the end of their story.

As part of our plan to conserve, honour and celebrate the doughnuts, we commissioned performance artist Angela Goh to develop a contemporary artwork, The Concert, which shared an interpretive story of the doughnuts, reimagining them as artefacts that connect us to both our history and the future.