Recent case studies, SineWave
Het Muziektheater, AmsterdamNational Theatre, Lyttelton, London
National Theatre, Olivier, London
San Sebastian Concert hall, Spain
Residenz Theater, Munich
National Theatre, Liechtenstein
Lampegiet Theatre, Holland
Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, Wisconsin
Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark
Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark
The Copenhagen Opera House opened with a royal performance in front of Her Majesty Queen Margarethe of Denmark on Saturday, January 15th. Located in the harbour, on the small island of Holmen, the Opera House was a gift to Copenhagen from Danish shipping magnate Maersk McKinney Møller. The $442-million (337 million-Euro) building has been the subject of some controversy, the architect complaining about "architectural compromises" he had to make when McKinney Møller demanded that the building be changed to incorporate his ideas. Despite that, the Danish public has taken the building to their hearts, with all performances for the coming season sold out.
The Opera House's main stage seats an audience of nearly 1,500. Five adjacent stages, constructed in a modular design, enable sets to be easily moved on and off the stage as required by the dynamic repertoire of operas or ballets. An experimental theatre called Takkelloftet (literally 'the rigging loft,') seats 200 people. The full Opera complex houses over 1,000 rooms, including rehearsal spaces for the opera and ballet and a large orchestral rehearsal room.
No expense was spared at Copenhagen. The ceiling of the main auditorium is adorned with 105,000 sheets of 24-carat gold leaf. And the Opera boasts one of the most advanced theatre lighting installations to date, specified by UK consultants Theatreplan. IES's sine wave technology was chosen so that dimming could be distributed directly over the stage, with no harmonic distortion. Sine wave means no noise from lamp filaments, no dimmer noise and no cable hum - a sound technician's dream. It also allows efficient distribution of power to the overstage lighting frames. Dimmers are located exactly where they're needed, near the lighting fixtures. Cost benefits arise from not having to install load wiring to dimmer racks, but using simple, efficient power mains distribution instead. Also, the dimmers are self-contained; more can be easily added if needed.
Copenhagen Opera House boasts 1008 channels of ETC Sensor CEM+ dimming, plus 300 channels of IES sine wave dimming and 120 channels of IES switch bars, and is one of the first installations where the two forms of dimming have been used side by side. House light control is provided by an ETC Emphasis 2D 1000 channel system, while an Emphasis 2D 5000 channel system provides a snapshot of the rehearsal lighting over 10 DMX universes on Ethernet. The complete lighting system is networked using ETC's ETCNet. An ETC Unison architectural processor is used to control the foyer and outdoor lighting.