Last year the theatre celebrated its troupe's 250th anniversary. Formed in 1756 by decree of Empress Elizabeth at Moscow State University, and named Moscow Russia Theater, in 1780 the troupe moved to the Petrovskii Theater, next to the Bolshoi Theater, on what is now Theater Square. In 1824 the theatre became officially known as the Maly, which means 'small' in Russian, as opposed to Bolshoi ('big'). Only minor repairs have been carried out since the 1940s, but last year the Maly was awarded a government grant to refurbish the façade, revitalise artwork in the theatre and its entrance and update the lighting and sound systems.
The historical aspect of the building and its architecture had to be taken into account while updating the technology. The new mixing system had to be installed with the minimum amount of disruption to the architecture - a traditional horseshoe-shaped theatre with dress circle, upper circle, gallery, private boxes and elaborate plaster and woodworking. Among the restrictions was the creation of new cable channels, which meant using the existing ones.
"We had to come up with a solution which could provide us with a great number of audio channels with a minimal amount of cabling," says the Maly's head of sound, Alexander Kazarin. "The only solution was to use a digital communication system.
"We looked at many digital systems on the market, but none of them were suitable due to such limitations as the length of the digital signal transmission. But the main problem with most other digital desks was the difference in the ergonomic control surfaces of the analogue consoles that engineers are used to. The complications this would have thrown up are unacceptable for our theatre, which holds many festivals and concerts being operated by different sound engineers, who usually don't have the opportunity to become acquainted with the system.
"The XL8 has completely fulfilled our criteria. All the channels can be relayed from the console to the stage via just two Cat 6 cables. We also have a huge input and output count compared to what we had before."
The theatre has two mix positions, one at the rear of the stage and a second control surface in a box to the side of stage. The mix position can be changed dependent on the type of production, and is easily accomplished by reconnecting the HyperMac cable from the stage routers to the required console. A recording studio one level up can also be fed with 48 channels of audio from the stage via four Cat 5 cables.
The full renovation is due to be completed in 2012. However, the Maly won't need to close, as the major work is being carried out during the summer months when the troupe is on tour so as not to disturb the performance schedule.
(Jim Evans)
