Jands Vista in control for Handel’s masterpiece
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Loosely based on historic events during the Roman Civil War, Giulio Cesare - translated as Julius Caesar in Egypt - tells the story of feuding family dynasties, revenge, and obsessive lusts of the most powerful figures of the ancient world.
With Bury Court Opera's focus on using a young cast and production team to provide a fresh take on classic operas, the lighting was key to achieving their artistic vision.
To deliver the show's innovative lighting design by Prema Mehta, lighting programmer Robert Price specified the Jands Vista control solution.
He comments: "I use Vista as I love being able to tailor its software and hardware for any type of show I do. I can set it up in any way I see fit, so its layout is always designed around the application I'm using it for, rather than a generic desk layout used for every show - giving me ultimate flexibility and ease of use."
Price found the Vista's feature-set to be suited to the opera's theatrical programming environment. "Vista has so many useful shortcuts,” he says. “The Learn Timing feature made fast work of getting the cues to fire in sync with the overture.
“With the design's heavy use of moving framing and shutter cuts, being able to control them visually on-screen drastically speeded up the programming process. Vista's timeline also allowed me to very quickly and accurately edit all fixture parameters within an entire cue list.”
Price used his Jands Vista S1 control surface and two Vista M1s as additional wings to control a mix of LED moving spots and washes, as well as traditional Profiles and Fresnels.
He concludes: "By running a PC-based Vista setup, I can use my full system for programming purposes, and then I can pack my extra M1 wings and screens away and use just my S1, which has a smaller footprint, for the live show playback at front of house. This level of flexibility is so convenient."
(Jim Evans)
