This weekend the Sydney Opera House turns 40. It's hard to imagine a building of this magnitude being commissioned by a government today, yet there it stands - a monument to vision and creativity (not to mention engineering) that has been recognised not just with State heritage listing (2003) but World Heritage listing (interestingly, some five years earlier, in 1998). The chequered history of the building's construction is well known, as is Jørn Utzon's vow never to return to Australia following conflict with a newly elected Government concerned about escalating costs as engineers grappled to find solutions to Utzon's challenging design. The harbour site was one of 30 considered for Sydney's new Opera House. Joined by rubble in 1818 so that Fort Macquarie could be built there, Bennelong Point was a tidal island when Europeans first arrived. Named after Woollarawarre Bennelong, who lived there in the 1790s, the Opera House, like many Sydney buildings, is built on the remnants of shell middens. This weekend's fesitivities include a 40th anniversary concert, to be held on Sunday. Officially, the first production held at the Opera House was Prokofiev's War and Peace. Unofficially, it was a concert given to Opera House workers in 1960 by Paul Robeson - a fitting first concert by anyone's standard. You can read more about the Opera House in Laila Ellmoos's essay for the Dictionary here.