Composed by Yin Qing, The Ballad of the Canal (运河谣) recalls stories of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal – the longest canal in the world – in an opera based on a combination of Chinese folk music and Western opera styles. First performed at Beijing’s National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in 2012, its recent revival at the new Beijing Art Center used head-worn radio mics to balance the operatic performances with an acoustic orchestra within an immersive soundscape provided by L-Acoustics.
The production required a thoughtful approach combining the venue’s existing DiGiCo SD5 mixing consoles and two additional DiGiCo Quantum 7s. Two mirrored Quantum 7s backstage and two mirrored SD5s at the front of house position were connected via an optical network, providing the interfaces that engineers Wang Bin and Wang Lei needed to ensure the different styles of performance were able to sit together in Wang Bin’s immersive mix.
The auditorium sound is provided by a permanent L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal System. Using the L-ISA source control natively integrated into DiGiCo’s SD and Quantum Range, L-ISA’s object-based mixing is readily accessed through the consoles’ surface.
The NCPA already owned two DiGiCo SD5s and purchased two further Quantum 7s for this performance. The chorus was mixed on the Quantum7, and the mixes sent via the optical network to the SD5 at front of house, where the performer radio mics were mixed. This approach gave both engineers the flexibility and control they needed to fully immerse their audiences in this unique experience.
‘I personally feel that a good immersive audio system needs to fulfil three points – to increase artistic expression; give the user a greater space to re-create; and lastly to provide a deeper sense of spatial immersion,’ Wang Lei explains. ‘With DiGiCo, these three characteristics are reflected in this opera, no matter if the source is near or far, the sound is clear and precise.’
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