Robe moving lights, ESPRITES, Spiiders, iSpiiders and iFORTE LTXs were utilised as follow spots on the lighting and set designed by Simon Corder for Opera Hedeland’s La fanciulla del West (Girl of the Golden West) by Puccini, which is set in a ‘Gold Rush’ prospecting town in 19th century western USA.
This is the third time Corder has designed shows at the Denmark outdoor venue following the 2018 and 2022 seasons. As a designer who engages in a lot of site-specific work, he was delighted to be asked to light the 2024 production and to work again with Copenhagen based lighting rental company ETP which supplied all the lights.
ETP has a large Robe inventory and has invested steadily in the brand in recent years, and enjoys a relationship with Robe’s Danish distributor, Light Partner.
In fact, he always used Robes on these three Opera Hedeland performances, but the big new Robe element this year was the iFORTE LTX.
Corder is based in the UK and admits that when he first found out that ETP was proposing the switch to the iFORTE LTXs as follow spots in these positions with a 75-metre throw, he was a little unsure. He admits that he could “hardly believe” that the moving light would work the distances, and he was also a little sceptical about how they might mix and morph with the natural light as the show started in daylight and transitioned to full darkness.
He then reached out to Will Blackie at Robe UK to arrange a demo at their Northampton HQ which soon reassured him that the fixtures would be a great solution. “The flat field is excellent as is the CRI, and the zoom is also impressive and there’s plenty of punch,” he stated.
As the Opera Hedeland summer shows are staged over a span of a couple of weeks, it’s also convenient to leave the IP 65 rated iFORTE LTXs on their vertical truss towers and out for the duration of the event, rather than having to de-rig and pack them away after each show.
“I love it, it’s a fantastic fixture and an ingenious system,” Simon enthused.
The four RoboSpot base stations were located in a backstage portacabin and were operated by local crew who learned the process quickly. This set up means that if it rained during the show they were also protected.
Most of the iFORTE LTX FS parameters were controlled via the lighting console, so the operators could concentrate fully on the following. The 12 ESPRITES were rigged six-a-side on two 10-metre-high industrial style steel towers that are part of the site’s permanent technical facilities, left and right of the stage, and these were the only elevated lighting positions near the stage. They were joined by six iSpiider wash beam fixtures a side on the same towers that this year replaced a cluster of PARs in the past.
These luminaires plus another set of three iSpiiders on a tower stage right all worked hard lighting all the action, specials, set washing and scenic lighting.
Around the arena 12 standard Robe Spiiders were positioned, housed in special boxes for weather protection and aesthetics.
Corder finds Spiiders an ultimately useful fixture, he commented, “They offer the brightness and clarity of PARs plus all the additional featuresof an LED moving head fixture”.
His approach to lighting La fanciulla del West was “almost architectural” in that the shape and space of the environment heavily influenced the show aesthetics and where devices could physically be rigged. Corder loves site-specific projects for their uniqueness and atmospheric nature and is fully into “embracing the quality of the environment” in every way possible. The main challenge with this production was time, coupled with the intricacies required in morphing from day to dusk to dark to full artificial lighting.
In the six years since his first Lucia de Lammermoor production at Hedeland in 2018, the conventional PAR can lighting rig has shifted to primarily moving lights and LEDs at great speed. “You can do so much more with the same hanging space, less lighting fixtures and electricity!” Corder quipped.
Corder worked closely with his programmer Henrik Christensen and chief LX Jens Damsager Hansen, both of whom he described as “brilliant and excellent team players”.
La fanciulla del West was directed by Rodula Gaitanou, costumes were by Gøje Rostrop, with music by the Opera Hedelands Festivalorkester conducted by Carlo Goldstein.
