Part of the recent Masada, Dead Sea and Jerusalem Opera Festival, an open-air production of Verdi’s Aida was performed against the backdrop of Mount Masada in Israel.
With Britannia Row Productions handling the event, system tech Josh Lloyd also found the system’s flexibility came into its own for the five Masada performances – which required a different way of working: ‘The automation is fantastic on the XL8, and we were using it to far more of its potential than in the past,’ he offers. ‘We were reassigning VCA groups from scene to scene, always keeping the appropriate principles from a section of the opera in front of us on the surface, as well as using the automation to update audio parameters between scenes. We also used the midi in scenes to fire outboard and a sidecar console we were using due to the very high [144] channel count. Using all these elements of the automation meant that once the show was up and running we could concentrate on mixing the audio. We also benefited from using the XL8’s integral AES50 network to route audio from point to point between the DL451 I/O units, so we could use it as a backup to the main returns and comms systems which was very in a very hostile environment.
‘The XL8 was a great choice for this gig due primarily its superior audio quality,’ he adds. ‘Opera-goers are very particular about audio quality and are traditionally used to hearing it unamplified, so it needed to sound as natural as possible. The XL8 was also a good choice for the harsh environment of the desert, being extremely reliable and able to survive with the heat and dust. A good decision all round.’
More: www.britanniarow.comMore: www.midasconsoles.com
