HSL has been supplying Opera Holland Park for the last three seasons, project managed for them by James Ewart, and in four weeks, they built a complete 830 capacity theatre and site infrastructure, including all backstage facilities, dressing rooms, stage, auditorium, picnic and public areas and front of house. The stage is built under a custom canopy and has two structural points that are also used to fly the spine of the lighting rig mother grid - a carefully balanced network of trussing runs coming out from the centre, with four booms either side of the stage.
"The idea is to provide a good and dynamic generic lighting rig offering plenty of choice for the three LDs involved across the six different productions," says Harth. The supply includes over 150 lanterns, a mix of Source Fours and Source Four Zooms, Pars, fresnels plus Chroma-Q scrollers for the FOH Source Fours to maximise their flexibility. The desk is a Strand 520 for the stage, and a simple Zero 88 Elara for the site and house lighting.
On the audio front, HSL supplied a selection of Community speakers, which are installed across the main trussing grid in the auditorium. However, the operas are all sung without amplification and the orchestra plays acoustically, so as far as what's happening onstage is concerned, the audio system remains as a back up.
The Yamaha M2500 console runs all the site announcements and HSL have supplied a selection of waterproof speakers for the public address system. The planning and logistics of the get in also required some lateral thinking and with no artic access possible on site, it was crucial that everything appeared at the right time and in the right order.
(Cheryl Constable)
