The concerts featured a 76-piece orchestra and a 60-piece choir together with baritone Gianfranco Montresor, soprano Paola Sanguinetti and guest star Tina Arena accompanying Bocelli.
"As each orchestra member is playing towards the conductor, the orchestra itself can be considered a point source," says sound designer Andrea Taglia, whose priority for the main system was to preserve the orchestra's sound image, retaining a sharp correlation between the visual of the musicians playing live and the sound system reinforcing it.
"I designed a full mono system with a centre cluster of between 12 and 15 Kudo cabinets, depending on the venue, to cover the floor. There was a left and right hang, again of between 12 and 15 Kudos per side, to cover side balconies; left and right side hangs of eight Kudos per side to cover audience seated at the sides of the stage; delays of one or two clusters of six to eight Kudos for covering the front of the balcony and an arc delay subwoofer system of 12 SB218 subs on the ground in front of stage."
Fully open Kudo cabinets with 110° angles, often rigged at around 15m from the floor, helped cover the front rows without much image shift, while those closed to 50° gave a good focus for the audience further back. "In Melbourne we didn't use delays as the rigging points didn't allow this, and with a centre cluster of 15 Kudos we could easily cover the floor and centre balcony up to an amazing distance of 76m from front of the stage!" says Taglia.
(Jim Evans)
