Two Yamaha consoles at Milan’s La Scala Theatre
After almost two years of restoration and rebuilding work, La Scala Theatre - an integral part of Italy’s artistic and musical history, and a true shrine for opera fans all over the world - was returned to its public at the end of 2004.
The hall designed by Piermarini underwent meticulous restoration work, which “re-discovered” the original terracotta tiles in the boxes, repaired parquet inlays in the foyers and restored many other beautiful materials to their splendour original.
At the same time, a radical rebuild was carried out in other areas of the building, including the complete replacement of the stage mechanisms and lifts and the construction of a brand-new oval building on the roof, which hosts dressing rooms, offices, make-up, cloakroom and canteen.
The acoustics were also improved with the installation of a new “floating” floor in the hall, made up of seven layers of different material, the topmost of which is in top-grade oak.
Behind the scenes of the impressive new stage, the theatre was equipped with leading edge technology, which not only enables to store recordings of the shows in digital format, but also considerably facilitate the work of the theatre’s technicians and performing artists.
As well as the lighting department, with its new-generation digital consoles, moving head fixtures and a network connecting them to the large dimmer room, the new audio control room at La Scala has a cutting edge technical set-up, run by one of the theatre’s veteran technicians, sound engineer Nicola Urru.
Urru began his career at La Scala in 1980 as assistant sound engineer and is now in charge of the theatre’s new AV department. An audio buff since he was a youngster, Urru submitted his ideas to the theatre’s Superintendent and Musical Director, explaining them what he had in mind for new department. These proposals were accepted and the sound engineer formed his team. “They are six very skilled boys, some of whom are highly specialized - one is a computer science graduate and follows all the IT aspects, now an indispensable part of our work, carried out increasingly frequently in the digital domain, two others concentrate on video recording and editing and another is our sound recording engineer. The others are responsible for the work of microphone and monitor placement on stage and suchlike.“
In the spacious AV control rooms, pride of place goes to a Yamaha CS1D control surface and a DM2000 digital production console, from which the technicians follow the shows on stage via large plasma displays.
The team also mans a recording and editing suite for videos that are used as documentation for the theatre’s archives and, when required, can also provide television channels with broadcast quality recordings.
Urru explains, “As far at the audio sector is concerned, we initially intended using the PM1D digital mixing system for our recording work, but then - after having taken into consideration the numerous service we have to control on stage - realized it would be much more useful for that purpose, so we decided to use the DM2000 for recording work. However, the two consoles are interfaced, microphone signals are fed to both via fibre optic and the DM2000 can also be controlled remotely using the PM1D system, to the set-up is extremely flexible.”
The use of two consoles of this calibre in a location that is proud of the fact that its shows are staged without the use of any sound reinforcement whatsoever - as is the tradition with opera and classical music – could appear to be a contradiction, but the reason is soon explained by Urru: “We have never used any sound reinforcement in the hall, with the exception of an opera whose director expressly said he wanted some effects such as wind and thunder, to be heard from various points in the theatre. On that occasion, we installed some loudspeaker enclosures for this purpose, but otherwise the singers’ voices and the orchestra’s instruments are never amplified. Nevertheless, in certain operas there are a lot of sound effects - for example, a recent production of “Idomenea”, had wind, thunder, off-stage voices and the sound of bells ringing, so the PM1D is extremely useful for this purpose, and we were able to program it to meet all our requirements - nowadays, having the system’s memories at our disposal, we are totally independent from that point of view.”
Urru explains how he “discovered” the PM1D: “I’d attended a ‘demo’ of the system a few years ago by Gianni Volonterio of Yamaha Italia, then I went to work in Japan on the Italian stand at the Expo with ballet dancer Roberto Bolle. There, I saw the PM1D again - in fact, the were no less than two on FOH work, plus two DM 2000, and another PM1D used as a monitor desk – they are really wonderful intuitive consoles.”
Microphones have been installed in strategic positions for the audio recording for the theatre archives: these are used for recording the orchestra and the singers but, as well as this “documentation” work, are also used with monitor speakers positioned on stage, in the wings and on the electricians’ catwalks to give audio support on stage, for the members of the cast who are furthest from the orchestra during the shows: this work is also carried out entirely by the PM1D.
In spite of being extremely busy organizing the new department, Urru is already studying the PM1D’s functions in detail, and concludes, “The system is already showing its worth, as it enables us to store all the parameters of each opera’s scenes and recall them whenever we want - a priceless feature with the busy program of shows being staged and others being rehearsed, typical of La Scala’s work schedule.”
