An ambitious production of Sir Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius — a
collaboration between the English National Opera (ENO), Royal Festival Hall and BBC
Singers, was described by lighting designer Lucy Carter as “dramatic, soulful,
beautiful, calm and overwhelming.’

Her aim “to map the emotions of the music in order to give the audience a visceral
sensation, with all lighting textures complementary to the music’ was achieved with
160 of GLP’s award-winning X4 Bars, which were used almost exclusively in the set.

These fixtures formed the main component of the show, featuring full orchestra and
chorus, as the LD mapped every single pixel individually on an ETC EOS desk — with
programmer Jenny Kershaw setting up over 500 cues on the console.

This exercise required not only major support from ETC’s Andy Davies but also GLP’s
Simon Barrett, who equipped all 160 fixtures (including ten of the smaller Bar 10
battens) with the company’s new 2-degree filter. Fitted as a diffuser on the front, this
smoothed out any possible colour shift when viewed at close range.

The stage set itself comprised a large outer tri-lined triangle of bars, set at an angle of
10° from the mother truss, with a smaller triangle in the middle, and a further three
long X4 Bar 20 lines at the back.

Lucy Carter visualised this epic design in WYSIWYG over a three-week period before
having to set up the massive test rig at RFH, which then had to be derigged for
another production before being reinstalled in what proved to be an extremely tight
time frame.

Introduced to ENO by artistic director Daniel Kramer, who had been impressed with
her exploration of light as a performance in its right in Sadler’s Well’s actor-free
production of No Body, she explained her rationale. “I researched the score and knew
I needed something that sculpted space. I had a lot of people onstage, and orchestra
stands are not particularly beautiful — therefore I needed to create another layer
which would evoke the journey with light emotion and light texture.’

She researched the best means of achieving this, and after being shown the versatile
X4 Bars, she sourced the lights from PRG, led by Jon Cadbury, who have supplied both
her and the ENO with solutions in the past. “The Bars gave me the zoom possibility,
with a tight curtain of light, as well as the flood as a wash. On top of that, the tilting
was brilliant, as was the colour mixing.

“I had initially only wanted them to be white, but suddenly I had a whole tool box and
great colour pallet.’

Carter also spoke to top theatre designer, Neil Austin, who has worked closely with
GLP solutions, and he suggested the 2-degree filter, which he had been instrumental
in designing. “At close range, the blending had not quite come together, and this
immediately alleviated any fears, although I doubt that at ten metres it would have
been noticeable. But it was really impressive and cleared any anxieties about short
distance viewing.’

“We use smoke effects to populate across the lights to produce a continually moving
organic feeling, with a lot of haze through the whole rig. It was one ginormous pixel
map, and we needed a high spec desk.’

Summing up, she said, “There were no issues with the colour blending, the dimming
or the tilt. Many LDs have told me how brilliant these X4 Bars are and I can
understand the huge demand. I can’t wait to use them again.’

Jon Cadbury, who had set up the initial test rig, admits that the X4 Bars had ticked all
the boxes, including being noiseless. “Lucy wanted to stream video through it, and
these were the obvious choice. However, rather than use a conventional desk with a
media server, running it in DMX entirely through EOS presented challenges as this was
the biggest pixel mapping control system ETC had ever organised.’ Special software
needed to be developed and a more up to date production desk provided.

“It was certainly an original way of lighting the orchestra who are more used to
working in Proms conditions,’ he concluded.

In addition to the GLP and ETC support, Cadbury also praised the work of production
electrician, Martin Chisnall, Ade Stead, who was responsible for the truss structures,
and Graham Moir, technical manager at Royal Festival Hall. Lucy Carter’s design was
developed closely with the support of Adrian Plaut, her lighting supervisor from ENO,
and she also credits production manager Matt Nodding from ENO for his assistance.