Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour has become a huge part of the cultural landscape, combining all of the things Sydney does best: world-class opera, fine dining, sunsets and spectacle on the harbour’s edge.
It’s a monumental undertaking, with a team of more than 700 people involved in the project before a single note is heard over the harbour.
This year’s production of Aida is the biggest opera Opera Australia has ever performed on the opera stage and this year, for the first time, Matt Scott has taken over as lighting designer with Chameleon Touring Systems providing the lighting equipment.
Matt’s aim was to produce an endless series of intense images with heightened colour and broad brush strokes.
“You’re playing to such a large crowd of people in a huge setting whilst also competing with the lights of the harbour and the lights of the city, so you can’t get too intimate,” he commented. “We went for the biggest, broadest brushstrokes we could get away with. It’s quite a static opera and the space that Mark Thompson designed is a large 30 metre x 30 metre stage. You have to expand the story out and make it grander. I guess we were going for a militaristic rally vibe for the bigger numbers with intense emotional colour for the intimate scenes whilst keeping the broad picture in the background.”
The venue has locked down the positions for the main rig from the first three years; two side pontoons eighteen metres away from the stage, three FOH towers slightly asymmetrical due to the trees and a crane.
“The bulk of your fixtures have to be rigged in those places,” said Matt. “I managed to snatch the crane for some lighting with a ladder that hangs off of the main boom and another ladder that hangs off the hook position of the crane. Then it was about how much real estate I could get on the stage itself. For the big militaristic effects I had twenty-two Clay Paky Sharpy’s sprinkled liberally around the set, hidden behind set pieces, and fourteen Martin MAC2000 XB Wash fixtures snuck in under walkways and camera positions.”
Matt used ten MAC III Profiles front of house for mainly gobo washes across the front of stage with thirty MAC III Performances used where shuttering was a necessity
“I was impressed by the output from both models and they performed well,” said Matt. “I also had twenty-eight MAC Viper Profiles to pick out and do side light, with some on the crane providing punchy back light and gobo washes. I hadn’t used the Vipers before but they were great and in terms of output, competed well with the Clay Paky Alpha 1500 Profiles which was surprising.”
As in previous years, weather was a continuous battle and fixtures were regularly getting a good soaking. According to Matt, the Chameleon crew were amazing at keeping the fixtures going.
“The Clay Paky Alpha 1500 Profiles were the workhorse of the rig and I would have had more of them if they had been available,” continued Matt. “I would have preferred all the FOH positions to be Alphas. You can’t cover the whole stage from the FOH position, so you have to select where you want the audience to look at any given point. The shutters on the Alphas were ideal for this, they could cut off the areas we didn’t want seen.”
Matt was particularly impressed by the twenty Pro Shop EX36 RGB LED outdoor floods which he found to be extremely durable.
“Rain could constantly pour down on them and they were fine, being LED they had no moving parts which helps,” he said. “They have a good output and were used mainly under the stage uplighting through some grilles. They were also used around the site to uplight trees.”
Twenty-four Pro Shop outdoor RGB LED PAR Cans were also used. Smoke was provided by eight JEM ZR44 smoke machines.
The show was programmed with Jason Fripp on a MA Lighting grandMA2 with the site electrics run off an MA2 onPC.
