Christie Co-Stars in 15-Hour Performance of aus LICHT with Amsterdam's Dutch National Opera

	Photo: Ruth and Martin Walz, Dutch National Opera

As part of a 15-hour performance spread over three days, Dutch National Opera performed major parts of Karlheinz Stockhausen's aus LICHT cycle. As one of the world's top five opera companies, the Dutch National Opera opted for a combination of Christie Terra for AV distribution and processing, and Christie Pandoras Box for content management and control of the four LED video walls, cameras, and projectors used throughout the performance space.

The performances were produced in cooperation with the Holland Festival, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and the Stockhausen Foundation, and held at Amsterdam's Gashouder, a former industrial hall that now serves as an event space. The audience experienced some of the highlights from the artist's seven operas, named after weekdays, during the three-day performance. This is the first time that a summary of aus LICHT has been staged.

Christie partner Rolight managed the installation of the Christie equipment and on-site coordination. Two Christie Pandoras Box managers and two Christie Pandoras Box quad servers supplied source signals to Christie Terra transmitters. Four Terra receivers supplied signals to each of the four LED walls, and four more Terra units were used for previewing AV sources and broadcast feeds. The system operated from a 10G Ethernet switch and a Terra controller was used to configure and control signal routing.

The large-scale production was recorded, with the aim of reproducing the entire sound universe of Stockhausen's aus LICHT, with three wireless cameras in the hall, five remote cameras, two wireless cameras outdoors, and four cameras in a helicopter.

The performances included live feeds with many different effects, including a LUT shader designed by Michael Hantelmann (Hantmade) for color grading, as well as pre-produced video content on the four video walls. Each video wall had a total native resolution of 1280 x 768, produced in 1080p/50 format.

Based on SDVoE technology, Christie Terra was designed not only to simplify distribution, processing and management of AV signals over ten Gigabit Ethernet components, but also to provide enhanced and optimized options for designing AV workflows. Pieter Huijgen, head of lighting and stage technology at the Dutch National Opera, says: "We were thrilled with the flexibility of the system, the programmability for assigning backup sources, and the multi-view capabilities."

In combination with Christie Pandoras Box, Terra features were exploited to the fullest, ensuring that the content was of impeccable quality without pixel loss. "The ability to program preset layouts and reuse them during rehearsal and productions without jumping in the sequence or having to program blindly in a second system made our work much easier," says Huijgen. In addition, Huijgen found the ability to create custom user interfaces specific to the production using Widget Designer enormously helpful.

"The ability to send tally indicators to the cameras when they are switched from the sequence also showed us that we made the right choice with Pandoras Box," Huijgen says.

The three-day staged program not only convinced critics and fans, but the equipment was the right choice: "Pandoras Box and Christie Terra were simply a very good combination," says Huijgen. After the project, the equipment was reinstalled at the opera house, and the Terra system will be used as a standard solution for AV distribution, including delivery of AV content to various locations in the foyers.