Soloist Camilla Tilling, in the role of the angel, had to descend from heaven, with her vocals captured clearly by chief broadcast sound engineer Rob Heerschop from BFN - without showing the microphone. Heerschop asked DPA's Dutch distributor Amptec if he could try out the 4017 and found the results to be so good that BFM ordered the shotgun right away.
The 4017 was mounted in two different positions during the production. The first was on a stand in the middle of the orchestra, aimed at the angel 10m above. "The microphone was in the middle of a large woodwind section but this had hardly any effect on the angel's voice, which was open and transparent," says Heerschop. "Then, in the third act, the angel was singing high above the stage and the audience, so we clamped the shotgun to a beam near the ceiling of the hall, and again pointed it in her direction. The distance was even greater this time, and again the sound was beautiful. This is the first time we've experienced such results with a shotgun."
Heerschop was also using an armoury of DPA microphones including the 4003 omnis, 4015 wide cardioids, 4011 cardioids, 4041-T2 large diaphragms and 4060 miniature omnis, to record the orchestra and ambience.
(Jim Evans)
