Uniting 2,000 ticketed concert-goers, crowds gathered in the nearby park with television viewers tuning into NDR and others watching a live stream, a new production of Puccini’s La Bohème was staged in Hannover’s Maschpark recently as part of the NDR Classic Open Air series. The live audience – which comprised around 20,000 – was served by a Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker system provided by event technic GmbH.

LiveAudio’s Georg Hentschel was responsible for the sound system design, using two hangs of six MLA each side of the stage, with a single MLD down fill at the base of each hang. These were supported by a pair of Martin Audio MLX subs, stacked at the base of the PA tower, with further subs under the stage. Six W8LMD Minis provided close-field coverage. The system was driven by XTA and Crest amplification.

Because additional seating had extended the width of the listening area over previous concerts in Maschpark, the system was configured to provide horizontal coverage of 135° using two six-element hangs of MLA Compact. Feeding the system from FOH was a DiGiCo SD7 digital mixing desk, with a DiGiCo SD10 used for monitors. ‘This solution for extended horizontal coverage really worked, and the MLA and MLA Compact were in perfect harmony,’ Hentschel reports.

The challenges facing the sound team were not only the unamplified volume of the orchestra and singer, and the coverage, but the fact that the live sound system must not interfere with the broadcast sound. ‘Since we needed to be powerful and quiet at the same time, this was the perfect job for MLA and the reason that I specified it,’ Hentschel  says. ‘It’s a great sounding system offering perfect coverage.’

Where the sound system and Georg Hentschel’s design shone through was away from the formal seating in front of the stage to the general public viewing the event on a big screen in the Maschpark. Here, having calculated difficult time alignment adjustments, Hentschel divided the park into three zones serviced by various loudspeakers, including three hangs of eight MLA Mini enclosures, reinforced with two MSX subs, for Zone 1.

Some of the challenges faced could only have been negotiated by the use of the MLA system: ‘One big problem of this site is firing the PA onto the wall of the government building,’ Hentschel explains. ‘MLA provided us with a great solution to eliminate this, as we could kill the back-wall sound entirely. It was really amazing to operate this system in small saved steps, like a surgeon using his knife.’

Hentschel also managed to isolate the orchestra through MLA’s tight multi-cellular control, ensuring that nothing disturbed the stage area.

In view of the sound level of the orchestra and the need to mitigate the direct sound, Hentschel also droped the flown MLA system almost to the mid point of the stage – 7.5m from top box to the ground – in order to generate a more controlled mix. ‘This was because the round shaping of the stage worked like a big horn,’ he explains. ‘By dropping the rig I was able to bring in the sound system very smoothly and at the same height as the virtual orchestra sound. We created three separate mixes as a result of this high volume output – for main system, out fill and near fill. For the outer areas, we operated the MLA Compact with a separate mix to hold the orchestra level.

‘We were not only delighted with how well this worked [for the paying concert goers] but also for the huge amount of praise we received for the performance of MLA Mini in the park,’ Hentschel says. ‘In particular this was from the Government who invited the townsmen of Hannover. As for the main stage, one of the singers told us that it was the best open-air live sound he had ever heard.’