Wanderung 22

Return to the Land of Oz

November - December 2009

Friday, November 13th, The Sidney Opera House and Bondi Beach

Bob:

Neville had arranged for us all to attend a Prokofiev concert at the Sydney Opera House (Thank You, Neville!), so we drove down in the morning and walked around the foyer areas while enjoying "Tea and Symphony", as the program put it rather tongue-in-cheek. The "symphony" was classical music by Prokofiev and the "tea" consisted of snacks and drinks in the beautiful foyer of the opera house. The multi-level foyer had large glass walls that soared from floor level to the ceiling far above and afforded us panoramic views of the dramatic "sails" or clam shells of the opera house jutting into the sky.

Monika:

When Neville had been visiting we took him to a couple of performances at Wolftrap, and outdoor arts venue near us. He had enjoyed performances punctuated by lightening and thunder. Now he was going to take us to the Sydney Opera House for a performance of music by Prokofiev. The Sydney Opera House is an architectural unique building recognizable all over the world. We had admired it from the outside on our previous but now we went inside and saw that the magnificent architecture extended to the inside. There are actually two buildings, the opera house and a concert hall. The foyer of the concert hall looked directly onto the harbor and the harbor bridge. The hall itself was large and very modern looking.

Bob:

The concert hall itself was equally magnificent although with a completely different ambiance. The exterior clam shells are all white unrelieved by any other color, so the effect against a blue sky is a dramatic contrast of the huge shapes with the heavens. The interior of the concert hall is covered completely in native Australian woods, as Neville informed me, and the effect of that expanse of light-colored wood arching overhead was curiously warm and welcoming. I would not have guessed it was wood, however, as many of the compound-curved shapes involved in covering that huge expanse of ceiling looked to be too difficult to accomplish with wood, but so it was.

But best of all, perhaps, was to hear the music of Prokofiev performed in a setting that matched its inherent complexity and grandeur. We heard the Piano Concerto # 3 and his sixth symphony while enjoying watching the orchestra perform. The solo pianist, in particular, hammered those ivories in a blaze of finger work that just had to be seen to be believed and he was endlessly fascinating to watch. During the sixth symphony I was also continually amazed by the sounds the conductor, Ashkenazy, was producing from the Australian Symphony Orchestra.

Monika:

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Ashkanazy, a former piano player now conductor. The program consisted of Prokofiev's 6th Symphony and his 3rd piano concerto. Both were pieces I had never heard, and certainly not as "easy listening" as the standard Peter and the Wolf or the Classical Symphony. But they were well worth the effort. Programming notes were helpful in making the music more understandable. The pianist and the orchestra were outstanding and we all enjoyed the music tremendously.

Bob:

Monika had wanted to swim at Bondi beach ever since we had seen it during our first visit to Sydney, so Neville and Lyn obligingly drove us over there. On this visit there were people in the water, but all of them were children or teenagers which tells you something about how cold the water was! Neville said that in high summer when the water is really warm the beach will be chock-a-block with sunbathers on a sunny day, but it was cloudy with occasional light rain while we were there so there were only a hardy fifty or sixty folks scattered around on beach towels. Undaunted, Monika leapt into the water. I followed but it was cold enough that I only went in knee deep or so and Neville, who was fighting a bad case of bronchitis and didn't want to turn it into pneumonia, wisely decided to stay at the water's edge.

Monika:

After the concert Neville drove us to Bondi Beach, a famous beach just south of Sydney. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the sun was sometimes hidden by clouds so it was cool. But I had wanted to do some more swimming in the Pacific so I went in immediately. The surf was up, although Neville kept telling us it was not really very high surf. I walked out bravely to were the waves were breaking. The water was somewhat cold, so Bob gave up immediately [Editor's Note: I did not give up! I waited patiently in the shallows!]. However, I just kept with it. You can't really call it swimming. It was more try not to get thrown over by the waves. Holding your ground when the water was going back into the ocean again was quite strenuous and after a little while I was getting tired. I went out to where Neville and Bob were watching me, but then decided to go back in. After all, how often will I have the opportunity to enjoy the waters of the Pacific? This time I did not go out quite as far, since it seemed that the waves were getting bigger or maybe I was just becoming more scared. But after a while, I was really getting tired and decided to give it up for the day.

Bob:

We had a very nice lunch at the cafe just beside the beach. The servings of fish and chips were quite generous and quite tasty, but I settled for the chicken burger and Monika had a regular hamburger. It was just as well that we had a good meal because the drive back through Sydney to Hornsby was excruciatingly long. Neville had to cope with continuous stop and go traffic for the entire drive and after about two hours of that even we passengers, much less poor Neville, were totally exhausted. Neville, Monika and I had a light dinner and we all collapsed rather early into bed.

Monika:

By now it was way past lunch and we decided to have a bite at a little fish and chip place on the beach. Luckily they also had hamburgers and chicken. Everything was quite big and we all were very satisfied. We all had forgotten that this was a Friday afternoon. Since Lyn and Neville live north of downtown Sydney and Bondi beach was south, Neville had to drive back through Sydney, across the bridge or tunnel and then north on the Pacific Highway. It was 3:00 by now and rush hour had started. What should have been a 1 hour drive turned into a 2 1/2 hour slog. Poor Neville was exhausted and Lyn, who had a serious shoulder operation just a few weeks ago was also getting very tired. So we just rested a little while. But then Neville, Bob, and I went over to the Westfield mall and bought a four liter box of wine to take on board the ship so that we could have a before dinner glass of wine without paying an arm and a leg! We also wanted to buy a map, but besides the liquor and grocery stores, all other stores were closed. We did pick up a rotisserie chicken for a light dinner and then headed off to bed.


 

Copyright 2010 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Cruise around New Zealand Map of Drive through Victoria Epilog

November 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30
December 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30

Return to the Wanderungs Homepage.
Sign the Guestbook or Read the Guestbook.
Comments about this site? Email the Webmaster.
Contact Bob and Monika at bob_monika@hotmail.com.