Actor Dei is based on the history of Saint Pio from Pietrelcina, an Italian priest who became famous for his piety as well as alleged supernatural events including the appearance of stigmata. The systems have been provided by Italy's leading PA rental company Agora which purchased them from local Midas distributor Texim.
Long-time Midas aficionado Claudio Venturelli is sound designer and chief sound engineer for the show. "As soon as I was told about the availability of two complete systems from Agora, I immediately migrated to the new Midas platform," he explains. "There was only one reason for my choice: I had absolute confidence in its sound quality, and the XL8 didn't disappoint me.
."The POP and VCA groups are real stress relievers as you can always get what you need at the touch of a single switch, and with nicely readable colour coding. Although the system's Linux-based software is in continuous development, it's very stable and we've never had a problem during a show. Midas and Texim helped us with constant precious support during all the setup phase, providing custom configuration files for our 'strange needs."
The large cast of Actor Dei consists of eight main vocalists plus a boy playing the young Pio, 16 chorus members and 16 dancers. Both XL8s share the same input list including 30 wireless receivers located stage right and 32 channels of recorded soundtrack, plus some splits for the understudies.
However the two systems are configured entirely differently, with the monitor system handling nine independent stereo in ear mixes for the main singers, six mixes for speakers suspended above the stage, plus some premixes and effects mixes. The FOH system is providing a more simple output set including a main stereo mix plus a number of mixes used for the surround system and some specific inputs from the 5.1 reverbs.
(Jim Evans)
