Nights of Light 2006 spread over two weeks, starting from the Feast Day of St. Alessandro, the Patron Saint of Bergamo. During the course of these two weeks light was used to pick out places and architecture in both the lower city and the upper, ancient one while, as is usual, the final evenings of the event were transformed into a festival of spectacles whose climax was the live appearance of singer Ron.
Clay Paky sponsored the event and supplied all the lighting material for both the spectacles and the architectural spaces through the services of SG Lighting, which also looked after the installation.
"This year we wanted to create a very close link between the production and the lights," said artistic director Claudio Angeleri, "We wanted the light to do more than just light the stage and to become a veritable language of expression. The work of integrating the light and spectacle lasted almost a year, but we were truly very happy with the result: I see that this approach has aroused great interest and is about to be adopted for similar events in other cities."
Gianbattista Scarpellini, SG Lighting manager, told us how they organised themselves for the event: "For the final evenings we had to provide two settings each day for the whole duration of Nights of Light. So a double team and a double set of lights were needed to ensure coverage of all the events in the programme. Our work was a true tour-de-force, because when one show finished we already had to prepare the setting for next day's one. In cases like this it is important to be able to count on the reliability of the projectors used which, notwithstanding the continual movement from one set to another, never gave me any problems."
The light system included various Clay Paky 1200W moving body units, as well as CP Colour fixed units of different power (150W and 400W), particularly suitable for the backdrop of the shows and for the surrounding urban lighting.
When it came to lighting the architecture, architect Barbero's choice was to enhance and upgrade the historic architecture that, in everyday circumstances, runs the risk of being unnoticed. He therefore worked "by subtraction", switching off some of the "disturbing" light sources and specifically lighting historical architectural sites and monuments. It was thus possible for all citizens to rediscover historical palazzos, corners and paths in their fullness.
Barbero designed a lighted route along the Sentierone, namely the old main road of the city. The design consisted of ten 300W light sources installed at a height of about seven metres and equidistant from each other, to retain perfect visual perspective. Each of these light sources consisted of a Clay Paky V.I.P. with 300W discharge lamp and a good four metres of optic fibres connected to it. In its turn each group of optic fibres consisted of 200 threads that were left hanging.
As part of the architectural upgrading project it was decided to light the Column of Via Sant'Alessandro, the only Roman remain in the city centre. The lighting provided a route of light leading to the base of the column and then continuing on the column itself. The effect was obtained using 2 Clay Paky V.I.P. 300 units with their respective shapers, also supplied by Clay Paky.
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