
The New South Wales government, agreeing that the city should aspire to recognition as a world cultural capital, gave official approval and in 1954 convened an advisory group, the Opera House Committee, to choose a site. In 1947 the resident conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Eugene Goossens, identified the need of Australia’s leading city for a musical facility that would be a home not only to the symphony orchestra but also to opera and chamber music groups. In 1821 Fort Macquarie was built there (razed 1902). The small building where Bennelong lived once occupied the site. It was named for Bennelong, one of two Aboriginal people (the other man was named Colebee) who served as liaisons between Australia’s first British settlers and the local population. The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point (originally called Cattle Point), a promontory on the south side of the harbour just east of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge



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