Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble, just back from the success and excitement of their long Il Volo World Tour 2016, are now top stars of traditional Italian and international music, which they play with style and modern arrangements.
Francesco De Cave helped create new exciting atmospheres through a show lighting design he set up using a set of conventional lights, Claypaky moving lights, and some other special effects.
"The production team and management got me involved to come up with a new show image for the world tour. They gave me some time to think and develop a new stage concept, put together a lighting design, and create videos to give Il Volo a new, elegant stage look."
The stage featured four large straight terraces for the orchestra, arranged behind the forestage, linked by a central staircase for the young tenors to move around on. De Cave fitted LED arrays onto the stair risers for the videos and arranged video panels on the backdrop to create a series of "windows onto the world", all surrounded by dichroic lamps.
Along with the new stage, graphic design and new lighting design, the conventional lights and Claypaky moving lights (46 Sharpy Wash 330s, 15 Alpha Profile 1500s, 4 Alpha Spot HPE 700s and 33 Sharpys) were used to create a setting visually reminiscent of theatres and Broadway productions.
"Just imagine the scene: the video and lights go out; then a sequence of lights comes on before your eyes which marks out the frame of a dressing room mirror, while the artist looks at himself, puts on his make-up and whispers his lines."
A moment later, each tenor entered the stage in pre-established places with intense white light beams behind them: three Sharpys, fitted with prisms and frost filters, marked out their silhouettes with a dazzling light.
"We fixed specific places for the artists only for some pieces, to get the right feeling and emotional impact. The tenors were allowed their usual freedom of movement on stage for all the other songs. They each had a follow spot that followed them, but above all there was back and side lighting to illuminate them everywhere."
The Sharpy Wash 330s on the battens provided back and side lighting for the whole set and - in particular - lit the musicians in the orchestra, causing them to cast long shadows, without affecting the video projections along the stair risers.
The Profile 1500s provided back lighting, which was sometimes shaped over all the members of the orchestra. The Sharpys produced effects and rays to create the scene and make the stage look even bigger. The Spot HPE 700s were placed directly on the stage and were used to project light rays backwards so that the backdrop did not look black on camera.
(Jim Evans)
