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Lifting the curtain on the Opera House’s past


When bestselling Australian author and journalist Peter FitzSimons set out to write a biography on the Sydney Opera House, he knew it would be an epic tale. What he didn’t anticipate were the subplots of drama, rivalry, betrayal, bullying, and even murder behind the modern masterpiece that defines our nation.

By Nadia Howland

  • Winter 2022
  • Feature
  • Read Time: 4 mins

A Sydney boy born and raised, Peter FitzSimons has always had an obsession with the striking white shells of the Sydney Opera House.

“I live five minutes from the shore directly opposite it, and every day without exception I drive down to Cremorne Point and gaze upon it for reasons I don’t really know myself. But I’ve always done it,” he says.

“I guess the thing about the Opera House, even for someone like me—somebody once called me a cross between a thinking man’s boofhead and a boofhead’s thinking man—I’m not arty or cultural but, looking at that building, I’m just stunned. I mean, how did Sydney get such a stunning place?”

Perched on a sacred site on the land of the Gadigal people sits the breathtaking building that symbolises modern Australia. Along with the Taj Mahal and other World Heritage sites, it is celebrated for its architectural grandeur and the daring and innovation of its design.

But unbeknownst to many, the Opera House’s history cloisters sorrows, secrets and scandals, from the kidnapping and murder of young Graeme Thorne to the forced resignation of Chief Architect Jørn Utzon.

“In my writing career, I’ve always tried to take left and right turns that I didn’t expect and maybe others didn’t expect,” Peter says of his decision to write about the Opera House.

“I could have just done books on rugby, war, politics, and exploration for the next 30 years but what I’ve tried to do is go off on different paths. The idea of writing a biography about a building, the Opera House, was really appealing to me. The more I got into it, the more I thought it was a fantastic story. And the thing is, within this fantastic story there are a hundred smaller stories that are all-absorbing.”

In this impressively researched biography, Peter exposes the Opera House’s secrets and marvels at the mind-boggling trials and tribulations of its design and construction.

“Utzon said, ‘I like to be on the edge of the possible,’ and for the first few years the engineers had to be thinking he’d gone beyond the edge of the possible and was well on the edge of the impossible,” Peter explains.

Chief Architect Jørn Utzon (Image: Sydney Opera House)

“There’s a scene where the quantity surveyor asked Utzon how deep the shelves were so he could work out how much concrete would be required, and Utzon replied, ‘I’m not sure… could be three, could be 12 inches’. And as it was, it was much thicker than that. It was staggering. When the engineers asked him for the precise angle of the Opera House’s curved shells, Utzon got out a ruler, bent it, and said ‘that curve’. That’s what they were working with.” 

Despite the design and construction hurdles, the Sydney Opera House rose from the ground at Bennelong, and was officially declared open on 20 October 1973.

“The Opera House not only changed the image of a city, but the image of the whole country,” Peter says.

“It is as iconic as the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Before the Opera House, the image of Australia was kangaroos and boomerangs and Uluru—all of which are lovely but didn’t present an image of a modern Australia or what a modern Australia was capable of creating.”

Construction of the Sydney Opera House (Image: National Film and Sound Archive)

Asked about his love of writing, Peter recalls the very day his first article was published and the euphoria he felt seeing his words in newsprint. 

“It was 30 May 1986, when my first article was published in the Herald. I was 25 years old and I’d written a piece on Italian rugby because the Italian rugby team was in town. I was working as a labourer between stints playing rugby in Europe and I took two days off to write the piece. They published it that Friday and that was just pretty much the greatest thing that ever happened to me, marriage and children aside,” he says. 

“It was just like, who has been keeping this a secret? I just loved it. And I’ve loved it ever since. It doesn’t feel like work to me, it feels like you bloody beauty. I feel blessed to have made my way in journalism and in books because I love them both passionately.

“A long time ago, back in 1991, I was breaking up with my then girlfriend. I was feeling low and broken, like I didn’t have a friend in the world. I happened to have with me a scrapbook of all the pieces I’d done by that point, and I opened it up and started reading my stuff from five years earlier. As absurd as it may sound, it felt like I was talking with my friends. I felt emotionally stronger for reading the stuff I had written.”

Peter says there’s an even stronger bond between an author and his books.

“When you write books, they’re not your friends—they’re your children. You work hard on them, they gestate, you give birth to them in a manner, and you want them to go out in the world, grow up, travel wide and far, and be respected.”

The Opera House is available now from good booksellers and online.

Win one of three copies of The Opera House by Peter FitzSimons


Epic and engaging, The Opera House captures the drama and history of Australia's most iconic building.

In this fascinating and impeccably researched biography, Peter FitzSimons exposes the secrets behind the Opera House's construction, marvels at how this magnificent building came to be, details its enthralling history and reveals the dramatic stories about the people whose lives were affected—both negatively and positively—by its presence.

The Opera House shares the extraordinary stories connected to this building that are as mesmerising as the light catching on its white sails.

For your chance to win a copy of The Opera House, enter online here

Alternatively, send your details, including your membership number and title of the book on an envelope to Our Generation Competitions, GPO Box 1450, Brisbane QLD 4001. 

Competition is open to National Seniors Australia members only. Entries close 7 July 2022.

Love stories like this?

This article is an excerpt from National Seniors Australia’s quarterly member magazine, Our Generation.

Become a member today and receive four hard copy issues of Our Generation (valued at $39.80) a year for free as part of your membership, along with exclusive discounts, competitions, branch membership and more!

Your membership directly funds our advocacy and research work for the benefit of older Australians including fixing pension poverty, tackling health care costs, and improving aged care.

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