I would say this is the most recognized opera house in the world... easily. It is gorgeous,…read moreespecially when there are special occasions where it may be lit up in colorful displays. What really surprised me was that the exterior consists of small tiles... who knew. One drawback is that it is not easily accessible. Loads of stairs to climb and the distance from any transportation option to the entrance is huge. Once inside you will still be walking quite a distance and many many stairs. You will not be able to enter here without staff assistance if you are not walking perfectly well. The inside is as gorgeous as the outside, there are several bars and restaurants inside and out and serivce is great. I came here for my very first opera and even so I could only afford the 'cheap' seats, I must say that my view of the stage was great and the sound quality was excellent. A great help were the small screens on which the translation of the opera followed along. Sort of like closed captioning for the happenings on stage. Helped me tremendously as I tried to follow along, but do not understand a lick of Italian. What else can be said that hasn't been said a million times? Oh yeah, don't forget to visit Benny the seal who hangs out on some stairs in back of the building facing the water of course.

Whether I saw the Sydney Opera House from the inside, by land, or by sea, this civic structure is…read morean iconic as I've ever seen in my travels. My only other frame of reference was our previous visit to the Oslo (Norway) Opera House. Both are waterfront cultural landmarks designed to merge art with public space. I think the comparison is relatively weak, but I did enjoy Oslo's stark and walkable white marble roof designed to resemble a glacier, encouraging public interaction. Yet, its hard to beat Sydney's sculptural sails. We took the inside tour, with one regret being running out of time and not having the opportunity to enjoy a performance here, preferably in either the huge Orchestra or Opera Halls. Heck, I would have settled for one of the plays on the lower level. The biggest highlight though was getting to see the projection on those Sails commemorating the 125th Anniversary of the Australian Navy. Absolutely Stunning!

We were very disappointed with the band as our requests for the band to play on the balcony and to…read moreplay certain songs (like the song for our first dance) fell on deaf ears. Our purpose of hiring Sydney Jazz Collective was to provide jazz music out on the balcony where most of the guests were. Moreover, we had repeatedly made this request to Tom and Matt but instead, the band spent the entire night playing inside the function room. If we had wanted music inside the function room, we would have used our iTunes playlist and used the indoor PA system to play the music we wanted. Their reluctance to play outdoors initially was due to overcast weather but when the sky cleared up, they still did not make the effort to play outside. Furthermore, following them up to provide feedback also fell on deaf ears as they never returned any of our calls or emails.

Quality of music is good but i think they were a bit self-indulgent. There were a few songs that…read morewent for much longer than what I would have expected, like more than 4-5 minutes because they played a lot of improvisation. Also, they had to be asked to start and didn't take the initiative to fill the time. So much so I was tired asking them that I played music from itunes. For 5 hours, I think they played about 15 songs which is about $300 per song. Also, we asked them to accompany the father of the bride on a song dedication. They made a mistake with the chord in one place. If they were amateurs I could understand. But they are supposed to be professional so no mistake is tolerable. And the attitude! My gosh. The leader was arrogant.