THE NAKED CITY – REVENGE OF THE COCKIES!
It’s now one of Sydney’s most popular big events with over 60,000 tickets sold each year. Opera Australia’s extravaganza on the shores of Sydney Harbour is a multi-million-dollar production that defies the vagaries of our summer weather and the onslaught of native fauna.
Last year’s much heralded production of Aida was disrupted when marauding cockatoos decided to chew the top off the imposing centrepiece of the set. With this year’s presentation of Turandot, the organizers are taking no chances with the show stealer, a massive polystyrene Chinese dragon that has taken over 1,000 man hours to carve. All sorts of precautions have been taken to keep the sulphur crested vandals at bay, but whether they are effective remains to be seen.
Here at the Naked City we have long endorsed the policy of urban dwellers living peacefully side by side with the local indigenous fauna – be they ibis, possums or cockatoos. The latter are a somewhat recent addition to Sydney’s exploding wildlife population, adapting brilliantly to the rigours of everyday life in the CBD. Their influx has not been without controversy and from time to time the City Council has seen fit to ruthlessly cull their numbers, largely as a result of their destructive habits.
Why sulphur crested cockatoos love to chew and tear up stuff remains somewhat of a mystery and even learned ornithologists can only provide theories as to this behaviour. The popular belief is that the exuberant and highly intelligent cockies become bored and partake in communal destruction simply as a means of combating their ennui. What is often overlooked is that these mischievous critters are highly selective in what they attack. Combine this with the fact that they have excellent memories and Opera Australia certainly has reasons to be concerned.
We all know cockatoos not only love to screech but respond brilliantly to all manner of sounds and human noises. A rousing version of ‘Nessun Dorma’ is more than likely to ignite their eardrums and see them returning, en masse to the scene of last year’s crime, ready to tear that fire breathing dragon to shreds. It’s a scenario of Hollywood dimensions, one that could well attract cockies from all over Sydney, descending on the Botanic Gardens like the final scene in Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’.
Rather than repel this avian invasion we would love to see Opera Australia embrace the local population of cockatoos and incorporate them into the actual production. It might be stretching the imagination, but cockatoos are remarkable mimics and with some intensive coaching they could easily participate in some of the in the minor chorus pieces, albeit only for their ability to hit the really high notes.
The flying foxes have long been excluded from the Botanic Gardens, driven off with a mixture of Heavy Metal and old Nick Cave records, amplified to over 120db. How fitting it would be for the far more genteel Aussie Opera to welcome the fauna back, even encouraging patrons to lure a cockatoo with titbits to their shoulder for the duration of the performance. We’ve heard that the giant laser-shooting dragon is to be retained and recycled after the season. But surely it would an act of ecological symbolism, if on the final night, three or four hundred beak busting cockatoos were encouraged to rip the sucker to threads.
Hang the expense, as this is surely a gesture of good faith – an acknowledgement that cockies are as much entitled to a slice of this planet as any other animal, humans included (ferals excluded), splendour!
