PEARL RIVER, China – The new the Guangzhou Opera House includes an 1,800-seat and a 400-seat theatre, both of which have been installed with Midas digital systems and analog consoles, and also with Klark Teknik signal processing.
The Guangzhou Opera House was designed by London-based architect Zaha Hadid to represent two boulder-like structures of different sizes, with a theatre located in each. The Grand Theatre in the main structure has been installed with an XL8 live performance system in the control room, together with a Heritage 2000. A second XL8 has been added to the networked system for stage monitoring, and can be moved depending on the application.
A PRO6 live audio system and a Verona have been installed into the control room of the smaller, multipurpose theatre, and there are two Venice 160s in the rehearsal studio and one in the news room.
Zhou Xucun is front of house engineer at the Guangzhou Opera House. He noted that the decision to choose Midas consoles came after numerous discussions and technical debates by audio experts, adding that the Midas gear got the nod based on audio quality, the familiar layout of the work surfaces, and the 24bit/96kHz sample rate, which he called "unrivalled."
Zhou Xucun also credited the consoles for "the powerful onboard FX, the EQ, preamps and general flexibility of the systems…I always recommend the XL8 to other sound engineers now. After simple training, visiting engineers can operate the system with ease, and without having to change their way of thinking to feel comfortable. The stability, flexibility and reliability combined with ease and familiarity are just amazing."
Since the Opera House opened, the Midas XL8 has been used for FOH on almost every live performance, including the opera Mulan, the opening ceremony of the 9th China Arts Festival, concerts by Chinese tenor Wang Hongwei, singer Zhu Zheqin and the 2010 Chinese Film Awards.
For more information, please visit www.midasconsoles.com.
