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http://plasa.me/lsamay21 May 2021 $10.00 La Traviata Spectacle in Sydney Harbour ALSO: LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B Water Feature Brooklyn Bowl Takes Nashville Reinventing City Winery New York Shure DuraPlex DL4/DH5 Mics Global Programming for Waitress in Japan Inside The Light Source
OPERA Copyright Lighting&Sound America May 2021 issue live link: http://plasa.me/lsamay21 40 • May 2021 • Lighting&Sound America
Violetta
r i se s ag ain Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour revives
its inaugural production of La Traviata
By: David Barbour
For
those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere Handa Opera has become a Sydney tradition. Each
these days, live performance seems but a dim year, a pop-up opera house is erected in Sydney Botanical
memory. Down Under, however, they’ve gotten Gardens, along the edge of the city’s harbor. It goes up in
back into the swing of things. In New Zealand, 15 days, giving the cast about ten days to work onstage
live theatre productions have been playing to packed before opening arrives. The stage deck rests on supports
houses for months; recently, the popular band Six60 planted in the harbor; The entire structure is 112' by 121',
played a concert for an audience of 50,000. In Australia, and the main playing area is 61' by 30'. The orchestra,
live theatre has resumed, culminating with the Sydney some dressing rooms, and other departments are located
opening of the musical Hamilton. Also returning to Sydney beneath the stage. The audience of 3,000 sit on bleachers,
this spring was Handa Opera, an initiative of Opera taking in a spectacular view of the Sydney skyline that
Australia that annually presents a large-scale opera pro- includes the iconic opera house and Sydney Harbour
duction outdoors on the harbor. (It ran March 25 through Bridge. Other amenities, added this year, included artificial
April 25.) This year’s offering, La Traviata, is a revival of the waterfalls that greeted patrons as they entered.
2012 inaugural production, with some changes. (Originally The set designer Brian Thomson was a likely choice for
Again
staged by Francesca Zambello, it was this year led by the this production. Best-known outside Australia for The
director Constantine Costi.) Even for those of us far, far Rocky Horror Show (and its film version), several of Barry
away, it provided a heartening reminder of the big, bold Humphries’ Dame Edna Everage capers, the stage musical
productions that are coming back soon. Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the 1996 Broadway revival of
As Jo Litson noted in the magazine Limelight, “The pan- The King and I (for which he won a Tony Award), and the
demic brings an added currency to the story about the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, he has a
consumptive courtesan Violetta, who finds true love with knack for delivering grandly flamboyant gestures without
Alfredo Germont but agrees to leave him when his father clutter or fuss. Here he devised a rectangular stage that
urges her to save the family’s reputation. Forced to fend resembled a tiered picture frame by way of M. C. Escher.
for herself, Violetta dies of tuberculosis, coughing in New for this year was a backing in the form of a skeletal
Photo: Prudence Upton
Alfredo’s arms as he and his father finally return to beg her Paris skyline. As before, hovering over the action was a
forgiveness.” Litson added that, following a series of sex 3.5-ton crystal chandelier, a glittering symbol of the high
scandals that have rocked Australia’s politics, the fate of life to which Violetta aspires before love alters the course
Violetta, who is cruelly manipulated by the men in her life, of her life. And, taking advantage of the natural setting,
also felt strangely contemporary. partygoers arrive at Violetta’s soirée via boat.
www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2021 • 41
OPERA
This year, Thomson backed the stage in a 94.5'-wide Paris skyline lit with LED strips. It includes a 49'-tall Eiffel Tower, and such iconic
images as Sacré-Coeur, Notre Dame, and Moulin Rouge.
“The pylons that support the stage are sunk into fly as a practical idea.” Thus, he settled on having it
bedrock,” Thomson says. “When we did the first produc- perched over the stage. The delivery of the chandelier was
tion, there was talk of having the orchestra weather pro- a major event. “We brought it across the harbor on a pon-
tected on land, but I said, ‘If we rake the stage, we can fit toon, ferried under the Harbour Bridge, past the opera
them underneath.’ There are dressing rooms down there, house, and to the site. We had two boats filled with
also props, stage management, and a place for the cast to reporters and photographers, following along.”
congregate.” This year, the weather cooperated after a The chandelier is 29.5' high by 29.5' wide. It is,
burst of rainstorms in the run-up to opening night. This Thomson says, a steel structure, made up of units that fit
was lucky because, he says, “When it rains, we get together. The crystals [supplied by Swarovski] are geomet-
soaked. In West Side Story [staged in 2019] the rumble ric solids. They’re made of a kind of pressed plastic,” he
never looked better than in the pouring rain.” He adds that adds. The chandelier is covered in 10,000 crystals and
the stage has a very coarse finish, which keeps the per- was hung from a crane, attached to the stage, which also
formers from slipping and sliding in inclement weather. serves as a lighting position. Leaving the crane in plain
The stage is spacious enough to accommodate a cast sight was a calculated decision. “This is the kind of theatre
that at times reaches 70 and, accordingly, Thomson keeps that shows the audience how it’s done,” the designer says.
the props and furniture to a minimum. The combination of “I much prefer to see engineering onstage rather than
Photo: Prudence Upton
the expansive deck, the Paris surround, and the enormous engineering covered with décor.” Indeed, since La Traviata,
chandelier provide all the spectacle one could want. he adds, “Every other show has had two cranes incorpo-
Speaking about the 2012 production, he says, “My first rated into the design.”
design was an enormous chandelier plonked down in the Thomson says that one advantage of the chandelier,
harbor, with various levels atilt. But it was never going to which moves, is that, resting over center stage, it helps to
42 • May 2021 • Lighting&Sound America
frame the action. It also facilitates the production’s greatest little weights are used.”) The second elevator is Violetta’s
coup de théâtre. During the aria “Sempre Libera,” “the deathbed. A 30'-long silver Chesterfield seen in Violetta’s
chandelier is almost down at the stage,” he says. “There’s country home and a 30' long table are secreted under the
a pod, a little cylindrical open frame on the bottom. It’s the side steps and their delivery onto the acting area occur in
moment when Violetta announces that she’s going to live full view. Although there are very few set pieces, they are of
her life to the fullest. As the chandelier rises, the pod a scale with the rest of the production. “The one thing you
comes out of the center shaft. She gets in, clangs the gate can’t do on that stage is something small,” he says.
shut and the whole thing flies up. It’s a simple piece of Proving an extra touch of spectacle is the fireworks dis-
engineering. None of the singers have complained about it, play during the Act I “Drinking Song.” “Violetta and Alfredo
and they hit their high Cs up there. Even in the pouring end up on the table with the entire company around them,”
rain, they do it; we don’t stop unless there’s thunder and Thomson says. “That’s when the massive fireworks display
lightning.” The chandelier was built by Stageweld in goes off. It’s done by Foti Fireworks, the company that
Melbourne. does the fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge on New
The 2012 production consisted of the deck and chande- Year’s Eve. If you’re there at the right time and you get a
lier only. But for Carmen, staged the following year, good sunset, it looks like CGI.”
Thomson added a giant billboard structure, spelling the
opera’s title on the harbor side, with the LED-illuminated Lighting
outline of a bull facing the audience. Since then, similar John Rayment, the lighting designer in 2012, returned for
ideas have been put into practice. This year, the designer the revival, but his approach was rather different this time.
backed the stage in a 94.5'-wide Paris skyline lit with LED As a video of the first production shows, his lighting was
strips. It includes a 49'-tall Eiffel Tower, and such iconic originally marked by a certain austerity, his palette domi-
images as Sacré-Coeur, Notre Dame, and Moulin Rouge. nated by white light. This year, his design had a fresh tex-
“It’s covered in three strands of plastic neon,” he says. “It’s tured color patina that feels thoroughly appropriate for
a flat plastic strip and three colors under a dome profile. Violetta’s louche demimonde.
You can’t see the LEDs at all. I was nervous that the effect However, getting started posed certain problems. “We
might be a bit overpowering.” But, he adds, it helps to cen- started with the same show file,” Rayment says. “There’s a
ter the onstage action. story around what happens when, eight years later, you go
Two elevators are built into the set. One, which is circu- back to a grandMA1 show file and import it into a
lar, helps to deliver the party thrown by Flora, Violetta’s grandMA2. We couldn’t get it to work; there was no way to
update the software. We had to find an old, dead laptop
with MA1 on PC and upgrade the software incrementally
until we got a version the MA2 would recognize.”
Commenting on the stylistic revisions, Rayment says,
“It was a revival, but a reworked revival. It had to be seen
in the context of what had come after it. There’s an audi-
ence expectation that we didn’t introduce originally. We
had a new director and there was a richer texture to the
staging.” He adds, laughing, “Part of our brief back then
was not to frighten the horses, not to be seen as a con-
cert-like experience.” He notes that one challenge in this
situation involves focusing the audience’s attention on the
action in such a grand natural setting, with its extraordi-
nary view. “One reason behind Brian’s skyline was to have
a wall that describes the limit of the performance,” he
notes. “The production required us to step up a bit more
and make it snazzier and more overt.”
Of course, when working in such a unique venue, expe-
rience is the best teacher. “Having done many of these
Rayment notes that his lighting this year featured a richer use of
color. “The production required us to step up a bit more and
productions, I am a bit wiser,” Rayment says. “Also, I was
make it snazzier and more overt.” able to marshal slightly better forces to do things I couldn’t
Photo: Hamilton Lund
the last time. For example, I could do more with the chan-
great friend. It is here that Alfredo publicly humiliates delier.” Other changes were implemented. In the Act II
Violetta, throwing money at her. (Thomson adds, amusingly, scene set in Violetta’s country retreat, he says, “We had
“If the paper money flies into the ocean, we get fined, so point-source LEDs to show we were in a garden. This year,
www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2021 • 43
OPERA
Proving an extra touch of spectacle is the fireworks display during the Act I “Drinking Song.” The effects were supplied by Foti Fireworks.
these became LED strip lights.” When illuminated, he adds, placement of instruments—for example, the two side goal-
“they made the set look like a presentation case, so we posts, each with Swa units. At the front of house, we have
Photo: Hamilton Lund
moved the effect more appropriately to the Act III party at three towers, one of which is the main control tower with
Flora’s.” the followspots. There are 12 units on each of the three.”
Rayment says that he worked basically the same light- Erecting and placing the towers must be done carefully, he
ing positions as in 2012. “It’s my original design for the adds, for fear of damaging anything in the Botanical
44 • May 2021 • Lighting&Sound America
Gardens. “The southern tower has to keep moving each Control was provided by a pair of grandMA2 lights; the
year, because there’s a tree that keeps growing and we’re show was programmed on a grandMA2 full-size. The sys-
not permitted to trim it. When we did West Side Story last tem also included two MA NPU units and two MA NSP
year, we ended up shooting through it.” He adds, “The units. “The console is located in the front-of-house tower
only thing that tends to change from year to year is the on the same level as the lower pair of followspots,” he
backlight,” which is adjusted to deal with the specificities says. “The chief followspot lived next door to the console,
of the set design. which encouraged a cooperative dynamic, getting the
Rayment’s rig included 62 Martin by Harman MAC Viper operators to talk about levels.”
Performances, 36 at the front of house and 13 each on the How do all these units hold up in the variable weather,
side goalposts. “I always need units with shutters, particu- which, this year, included plenty of rain? “Not well,”
larly on this set with its straightedge picture frame,” he Rayment says. “We leave them burning; the heat keeps
says. Interestingly, he also had eight Martin Mac IIIs, a the water from getting into the housing. And they all have
product much-loved by theatre, dance, and opera design- rain hats. Based on my experience doing big stadium
ers, which has been discontinued. “There are still some shows, the most effective way to shield the lanterns in
working units out there,” he says. (The Mac III was a key hostile environments is to put them into pre-rigged truss
component of the 2012 design.) Twenty Vari-Lite VL3500 and cover it so the truss is the housing. But that’s not an
Spots were split across the two goalposts. Twelve Ayrton option down there on the harbor. We can get quite a
Perseo-S units were deployed to make the chandelier breeze there, which can find its way into the fan vents.”
sparkle and to produce top light, with another 16 units Also, he notes, “When we finish programming, it’s two or
placed in the forestage voids. Backlight was provided by a three in the morning. Then the day crew can’t verify if
dozen Prolights Panorama IP65 Wash units, rigged in two something is wrong until its dark. Also, we’re in a salt-
columns of six on the crane’s mast. Followspots included water environment, which is very hostile.”
two Robert Juliat Lancelot 4K units and two Lycian 4Ks, all The key to succeeding in this ever-changing situation is
at the front of house, and two Robert Juliat Aramis 2.5K the ability to respond quickly. “We shouldn’t be just push-
HMi units, one each on the goalposts. (The designer notes ing buttons,” Rayment says. “I impressed that on my spot
that it took some doing to get balance between units from operators. You are performing this lighting. It’s an absolute
different manufacturers with differing intensities.) The sky- truism that one bad followspot can mar a million-dollar
line surround was lined in 400m of LED NeoFlex. Lighting show. It’s very important.”
gear was supplied by Chameleon Touring.
The chandelier itself was also rigged with eight Martin Sound
Mac Aura XBs and LED point-source units. “The LEDs were Des O’Neill was the newcomer to the creative team, hav-
placed on the strands and central column,” Rayment says. ing made his Handa Opera debut with West Side Story in
“At the top were the eight Mac Aura XBs, and, lower, where 2019. He brought with him some changes to the sound
it swells at the widest point, there were 12 Perseos, cov- system. “I added more elements to the stacks,” he says,
ered in chrome tape to match the rest of the chandelier.” adding that he relied on L-Acoustics gear for the loud-
In this environment, precisely achieving each effect was speaker rig. At left and right were hangs of six V-DOSC
one of the biggest challenges. During Violetta’s big chan- line arrays, three dV-DOSC boxes, and two L-Acoustics
delier lift, Rayment says, “I was doing my best not to blind subs. Ground-stacked at left and right were hangs of V-
her. The masterstroke of that moment satisfied so many DOSC; front-stacked were five speaker groups distributed
briefs; it’s a fantastic piece of imagination. It had a bit across the front of the stage, each of which consisted of
more animation this time. They introduced the idea of the four dV-DOSC and one sub. “The waterfall feature had
crane slewing to different points, so it sat over different black behind it, so the speakers blended in really well,
pieces of furniture. It was one of those small bits of infor- which is how I was able to get with the extra stacks,” he
mation that escaped me until the final rehearsals. I was says. “I also put them further back onto the set, so they
there with the visualizer, plotting the lights and wondering blended in better from a design point of view. This year,
why they weren’t in the right place as the chandelier we found a good balance between the aesthetics of the
moved. In strong winds, it tends to twist a little; it keeps set and where the speakers needed be positioned.”
John Llewellyn, the operator and programmer, on his toes. O’Neill’s big challenge involved achieving opera-quality
Also, when the bed comes up out of the stage, it was sound in an environment loaded with ambient noise. “It’s a
backlit by 12 Panoramas; if they were off by half a meter tidal area and on nights when the tide is high, you have
with the chandelier, that could give me 2° or 3° and, by the the sound of water lapping,” he says. “Occasionally you
time the light hit the bed, I could be off by a meter. As get the guy who rides past on his Harley when someone is
soon as the bed came up, John checked the position and dying onstage. And you get the party boats on Sydney
panned the lights into the right position.” Harbour; for example, one night we had Salt-N-Pepa
www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2021 • 45
OPERA
blasting from one of them. It adds to the color of the a good off-axis rejection of other noises. “I used Schoeps
event.” Also, he says, he worked to soundproof the under- MK4s on the woodwinds; they have a nice, tight cardioid
stage area. “At the high tides, you hear the water hitting pickup pattern and good off-axis rejections. With the
the sides of the pit. I put acoustical baffles in there, but French horns, I used large cardioid condensers for a nice
you can still hear the dancers onstage; there’s air-con in warmer sound.” Miking the instruments is a tricky busi-
there and other noises. You have to do a lot of working ness, he notes. “There’s a lot of apprehension with orches-
around with mic choices and positions. Also down there tral players when they start playing outdoors, but most of
are dressing rooms, audio infrastructure, the audio monitor them see [that miking] needs to happen. It would be better
console, and IEMs.” to do it with section and area mics, but you just can’t use
Onstage, all principals and chorus members were fitted them.” Mic placements must be precise, he notes. “One
with Shure Axient Digital mics. “The principals were dou- night, we had a heavy breather in the violin section, so we
ble-miked,” he says, “with a headset and another taped to had to adjust the string balance a little bit.”
it, so we could switch them in case of breakages.” This is The front-of-house console was a DiGiCo SD7, handling
an omnipresent possibility, for a variety of reasons: “Sweat 40 chorus and 24 principal mics, plus another 50 mics in
gets into the mics, there’s salty air, and the cast performs the orchestra pit. “I had some L-Acoustics X-12 local mon-
in all weather. Also, we’re exposed in terms of wind.” Still, itors,” O’Neill says, “because my mixing position [in one of
he adds, “The mics are fairly robust and were ready for the the front towers] was not in the pattern of the PA and I
next performance.” couldn’t hear what was happening in the audience area. I
The cast was also fitted out with in-ear monitors. tuned my monitors to have a similar EQ response to the
“Everyone was double-packed with IEMs,” O’Neill says, main PA; I time-aligned them to the main PA to have a fair-
“because the stage is so exposed with so much ambient ly accurate representation of what was out in the field.
noise, and classically trained singers are used to getting Between rehearsals, I used a Virtual Soundcheck to fine-
some acoustical feedback. In such a large outdoor space tune the audience area, adding different textural layers to
there are plenty of reflections from the seating bank and the mix. The monitors were also on a SD7, so they shared
audience, and it can be distracting, timewise, for them.
That’s why they need at least one IEM if not two.
“We used Sennheiser IEMS, a single earbud for each
singer. Some like a complete seal and others want to hear
what’s happening around them. Some wear it without a
seal on the ear because they find it too isolating. Operatic
musicians are not used to the technology. They’ll take it
out and have pitch problems. We spend a week and a half
in the rehearsal room, using mics and IEMS,” helping them
to get comfortable with the technology. “Each person
behaves differently, and they all have separate in-ear
mixes going into them. The dancers don’t have IEMs, so
we have foldback speakers—older EAW boxes—for them.
They were chosen because of their low profile and ability
to withstand the weather.
“Because the stage is so open and wide,” he continues,
“we’ve got monitoring positions at the stage entrances for The delivery of the chandelier to the production site was a major
media event, Thomson notes.
the stage managers to hear the show and the singers to
hear their entrances. There are constant monitor mixes
going on there as well. In the pit, the musicians have a
vocal stem going back to them. The conductor has his the same audio network. They were connected on a fiber
own Aviom personal monitoring mixer and I’m sending him network that was run in as part of the installation infra-
a full orchestra mix from the front of house and a vocal structure, and it was quite robust. We’ve got a lot of flexi-
stem. If he chooses to use it, the monitor engineer sends bility when it comes to recording. This production was
Photo: Courtesy of Janie Barrett
submixes of the orchestra back to him. None of the musi- filmed and then it went into post-production.”
cians are on IEMs; we don’t have any cueing or monitoring Mixing each performance under such constantly chang-
problems in the pit.” ing conditions, O’Neill says, “You’re constantly on your
The orchestra mics drew on a variety of makes and toes. There are two casts. But part of the job is making it
models. “The strings had DPA 4099 supercardioids,” he consistent from night to night. If a singer has a slight cold
says, noting that, in addition to sounding good, they have or isn’t feeling as well, that affects the balance. Violetta
46 • May 2021 • Lighting&Sound Americasings quite softly before getting in the chandelier, and the
closing of the gate can seem really loud; the higher she
goes, the higher the notes get—and sometimes it’s windy
up there. But given the mics and wind protection, it works
well.”
Still, he says, “You’re dealing with an art form that is
acoustic and that’s the way it’s expected to sound. You’re
going into this environment where there’s no choice but to
mic it. And you spend most of your time making it sound
not amplified. You need to get above a noise floor that’s
really high. That’s the trick, the difficult part of this particu-
lar kind of concert outdoors. In the orchestra pit, the ambi-
ent noise is great; at times we pick up backstage move-
ment for example when all 40 choristers and 20 dancers
leave the stage, for all intents and purposes they may as All principals and chorus members were fitted with Shure Axient
Digital mics; the principals were double-miked.
well be walking through the pit. I do a lot of close miking
to keep the ambient noise out of the mix. The tradeoff
here is that you get a very close and present sound, which
you have to work on, to make it sound a bit more distant.” hearts. Brian Thomson’s brilliant chandelier and Francesca
All of the designers’ contributions came together for an Zambello’s original production set the benchmark for
evening that celebrated the Handa Opera’s history while future Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour productions and
signaling a return to normalcy in the performing arts. As have become iconic symbols of this extraordinary
Lyndon Terracini, artistic director of Opera Australia, com- event.”
mented, “La Traviata holds a very special place in our
Top photo: Prudence Upton; Bottom: Courtesy of Brian Thomson
The 3.5-ton chandelier is covered in 10,000 Swarovski crystals.
www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2021 • 47You can also read
