At 25m wide and 10m high, lighting the Nederlandse Reisopera (Dutch Touring
Opera)’s cyclorama for a touring production of Orphee et Eurydice was always going
to be a tall order. Especially since, with the company’s limited budget, they needed
to be in and out of the venue in a day. But, with the help of 40 ETC Source Four®
LED Series 2 Lustr® fixtures with CYC adapters, and some clever rigging choices by
chief lighting technician Richard ten Hof, they succeeded where others might fail.
The opera, held across the Netherlands on 12 dates throughout May and in the first
week of June, tells the story of Orpheus, a mythical musician, poet and prophet in
ancient Greek religion, who is said to have been able to charm all living things and
even stones with his music.
Ten Hof first came across the new Source Four LED fixtures a year and a half ago,
when he was working with Dutch dealer Lightco. “I was amazed,’ he says. A year
later, he decided to try eight of the next generation Series 2 fixtures on a project,
each with a 25-50º zoom lens. “I was impressed with the addition of the lime green
emitter,’ he continues. “It produces a much better white, and we were able to get a
much better range of colours.’
For the Orphee et Eurydice tour, Ten Hof found himself with a problem. They had to
rig and focus all the fixtures, hold the performance, and be out of the venue all in
the same day. They simply didn’t have the budget to stay any longer – meaning
they had to be quick and efficient with their rigging. Initially he tested a different
fixture, but it didn’t work as well as anticipated. But further funding became
available, and so dealers Flashlight and ID Lighting were asked to supply 40 Source
Four LED Series 2 Lustr fixtures with asymmetric CYC adapters. “We quickly
mounted 20 fixtures at the bottom, and 20 at the top,’ ten Hof explains. The CYC
adapter’s special optics have no complicated lensing formula, meaning a bright,
even spread is only seconds away. “We couldn’t be happier,’ says ten Hof.
At one point in the show, says ten Hof, some shadow figures appear behind the
cyclorama, including an angel, which called for extra lighting: “We were able to
project the shadow in an even light, using the cyc lights to paint the shadows, which
worked really well. We were surprised by how good it looked.’
The show was originally programmed on an ETC Eos® control desk, then
transferred onto Eos’s smaller sibling, Ion®, for the show’s tour. With the same
powerful operating system, but a smaller footprint, Ion is the perfect touring
companion to any of the Eos line desks.