Pete's Big TVs' tech Nick Faubion worked with the 259 GTek 15mm tiles, creating a 600sq.ft video wall at 37 tiles wide by seven tiles high. An MBox media server distributed the content which included scenic video clips and opera text - though the show was sung in English. Said Faubion, "It was mostly stills that they had wipe or zoom in or out for effects."
Based on the book by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the opera is described as a light-hearted but dark comedy about a Holocaust survivor in 1948 post World War II. The character presumes his wife is dead, and with his move to New York City he marries again and takes a mistress, only to have his first wife show up very live on his doorstep.
New York-based scenic designer Allen Moyer said it was the first time an LED video wall was used at the Palm Beach Opera. Though he has used video projections in his career as a Broadway show, dance, theatre and opera designer, it was also his first time to use an LED screen, and he was happy to report a successful experience with it.
He described the set using the LED video wall. "From the early part of the process of designing the scenery, a large projection surface was included, hanging over three realistically sized apartment units. The apartments represented the major locations of the opera and were used individually on the stage or eventually all at the same time as events in the plot became more complicated."
Moyer worked with lighting designer Aaron Black and content creator Greg Emetaz. "The content was initially location based and was meant to ground us and help know where we were in the story," Moyer explained. "The opera takes place in New York City in the late 1940s. Then there were moments that the images evolved into more psychological and emotional reactions to the sung text.
"Many of the scenes involved the lead character travelling in the New York Subway System from his home in Coney Island all the way to his mistress in the Bronx along with stops in between.
"The video work was also essential to help us with all of the transitions since there were so many scenes," he said. "I thought it was very successful."
(Jim Evans)
