The SSO and The Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House, while among the most famous buildings of the 20th century, is problematic for the orchestra. The SSO was instrumental in calling for a new Opera House to be built and it was always intended to be their home venue. However, control of the Opera House has always rested with a separate body, the Sydney Opera House Trust, and the two institutions have had conflicts.
The longest running point of contention is the refusal by the Opera House Trust to allow the orchestra to drill small holes into the concert hall stage to allow proper seating of the endpins (spikes on the bottom) of their cellos and double basses, which is believed to give a better resonance to these instruments. The orchestra seats their endpins in planks of wood placed on the stage as the Opera House Trust maintains that the entire building is heritage-listed under Australian law and that such work would therefore be illegal.
Edo de Waart was particularly critical of this during his tenure as Chief Conductor in the 1990s, arguing in the press that the building had been specifically constructed for the orchestra and that it was a scandal that the orchestra was being forced to accept a reduced sound quality. However the Opera House Trust has refused to bend and as of 2012 the orchestra is still using the planks of wood.
Read more about this topic: Sydney Symphony Orchestra
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