This Opera of Donizetti was performed at the Royal Circus of Brussels, which is an old circus with over 1500 places. It's our first production after summer break. The biggest part of the set was build in the ring where acoustics are ok for singers to be heard at every seat. The orchestra was in the back, where once was the entrance of the ring but now is a big stage for rock concerts etc. They were installed stage-left, so the singers also played stage-right which means there is a big distance between singers and the audience or the orchestra.
Most of the time the singers were at the front of the set and thus about 15 meters from the orchestra. We installed 3 microphones on the stage-front to feed a fold back for the conductor. The orchestra was not amplified.
The Recording
To record this opera we installed a more or less traditional symphonic setup with decca tree in the center and some fill in's on every group of instruments. 4 schoeps MK4 on the woodwinds, MKH40 on brass and DPA omni's on percussion. The pianoforte had an ORTF of Neumann KM140 and we added 2 wings of Neumann KM131 omni's on the strings.
Pictures on facebook
Because the use of water and bath foam on stage we could not use wireless microphones on the singers. In addition to the 3 microphones installed for foldback, we added 2 hyper cardioide around the ring. Then we added 4 KM150 on the public entrances, which are placed higher than the Schoeps on the floor. These were very usable as a sort of main microphone array for the singers and choir but since the orchestra was behind the singers there is a lot of spill in these microphones which sounded very dull and distant. There were another 3 shotgun microphones installed and 4 microphones hidden in the set to capture some difficult places.
The Mixing process was not easy because of the singers moving around in this big space, with a lot of fan noise and the bleed of the orchestra, but we managed to make it sound coherent.
