JULY 09

 

 

"TOTAL PRODUCTION international" visits the Palais des Sports in Paris for a lesson in Egyptian history, and a master class in digital sound design from Jean-Jaques Dialo...

 

Sofi a Essaïdi in the lead role Moroccan-born singing sensation Sofi a Essaïdi, 24, is currently starring in the lead role of France’s biggest stage musical of alltime: Cléopâtre, La Dernière Reine d’Egypte (The Last Queen of Egypt).

Spotted by Cléopâtre’s creator and choreographer Kamel Ouali when she participated in the third series of TF1’s Star Academy, Essaïdi’s feet have hardly touched
the ground since the musical opened at the Palais des Sports in Paris on January 29.

Produced by NRJ, Jackie Lombard and Jean- Claude Camus, Cléopâtre boasts a cast of 44
singers, dancers and actors, 380 costumes, a crew of 52 technicians, and a 34m x 19m stage
designed by Bernard Arnould with lighting by Jacques Rouveyrollis.

Currently touring France, Switzerland and Belgium and booked through until next year, this new version of the famous story of Ancient Egypt features the music and lyrics of Lionel Florence, Patrice Guirao, Pascal Obispo and David Guetta, amongst many others — even ex-Bros heartthrob Matt Goss is among the songwriting credits.

The musical namedrops don’t stop there — playing Julius Caesar is Christopher Stills, the
son of Véronique Sanson and Stephen Stills, who clearly did teach his children well.
A common face amongst the crew of Kamel Ouali’s productions is sound designer and FOH
engineer Jean-Jacques Dialo who worked on another of Ouali’s creations, Le Roi Soleil, and
has once again favoured the INNOVASON brand. In contrast to Le Roi Soleil, however, this is
a very EtherSound-intensive sound design that relies on fi ve independent but shared networks,
each of them managing separate audio requirements that terminate at the FOH console.
Assisted at FOH by Arnaud Chipouka, Dialo’s console choice is an INNOVASON Sy80 which
receives permutations of 64 channels at any one time through the overall EtherSound network,
and outputs 16 channels to the PA.

 

SMARTFADING

All of the music is original and on playback, with the exception of a lute cameo. The recorded
music was transferred to a Tascam X48 in multitrack format to enable Dialo’s ‘organic’
live mixing of the material, in a similar vein to how he managed playback for Le Roi Soleil. The
Tascam is connected to a NetCIRA converter, which converts AES signals to EtherSound for
the purposes of the network.

Dialo’s continued favouring of the Sy80 is helped in no small way by his adoption of the
console’s Smartfade system which provide him with unlimited options for constructing the mix
in the most effective manner for the show. He said: “I really like the Sy80’s modular
design and fi nd the INNOVASON approach to be more engineer-friendly than any of its
competitors. You can assign any function to any fader or button so I can build my show
according to the way I like to work. As far as I’m aware it’s the only console on the market that
allows me to do that.

“As soon as I open a fader on one of the singers, it automatically opens up a Smartfade
zone at the left of the console [it could be assigned anywhere on the desk] which has
four sub-faders. One is for the actual singer’s microphone, another is for the understudy’s
mic, and the other two are for back-up mics for both in case of failure.

“Settings for every one of these were programmed into the console during rehearsals
to enable instant, seamless changes in show mode.”

 

PA COMBINATION

Dialo has also become synonymous with the combination of L-Acoustics and Meyer Sound
loudspeakers. The main PA system for Cléopâtre consists of left/right hangs of nine V-DOSC,
three dV-DOSC and four dV-Subs each side. There is a centre cluster of nine dV-DOSC
cabinets, a pair of Meyer CQ-1 sidefi lls, eight Meyer UPJs under the stage and six additional
subs on the ground.
Additionally, there are Meyer HD-1s, M’elodies and UMS1-Ps in various monitoring
positions across the stage. Amplifi cation for the L-Acoustics speakers is handled by LA48 amps
while the Meyer elements are all self-powered. The system is processed via seven Lake Contour
processors and two Lake Mesa EQ units. As well as his favourite outboard kit,
including Avalon VT 747s and 737s, a TC M6000 and Klark Teknik DN6000, Dialo’s FOH racks
accommodate all of the wares required to manage the ES-Monitor-driven network.
Designed by Alain Roy for Espace Concept, the FanMux multiplexer is a transmission system
that allows several networks on a single 250m optical fibre with virtually zero latency.

 

“You can assign any function
to any fader or button so I can
build my show according to
the way I like to work...”

The mix and all of the control data — including synchronisation information for
the Hog III lighting console, run by Nicolas Gilli — travels up and down this cable, while an
AuviTran AVM500-ES network matrix enables audio to flow in any direction.
Sébastien Rouget mixes monitors on a Digidesign Venue D-Show desk console which,
Dialo explained, was a choice enforced by Dispatch, a Digidesign distributor. “It wasn’t
a console that I would have specified in preference to INNOVASON, but Dispatch did not
have another one available,” he said. “To integrate the D-Show into our network,
we must convert the mix from EtherSound protocol to AES — something that would not
be necessary if INNOVASON consoles were at both ends of an EtherSound network!”
The singers are fitted with Countryman E6 mics on Sennheiser headsets and wireless
systems, looked after by RF technicians Frédérique ‘Fredo’ Braum and Alex Jousseaume.
With both economy and ecology in mind, rechargeable batteries are in use for all radio
mics and packs and are changed before each show.

Our attendance at the Palais des Sports was also the last ‘in-field’ visit for Xavier Pion in the
role of INNOVASON’s sales & marketing director.He was joined at the show by his successor,
Gauthier Dalle, who was clearly relishing his new opportunity.

“With Lawo’s recent acquisition of INNOVASON, the company is in a stronger
position to move forward than ever before and I’m really looking forward to the challenge of
taking our business to the next step.” Other noteworthy credits include executive
producer Dinh Thien Ngo, production director Roger Abriol, technical director Philippe
Graffet, projected images designer Youri Zeliviansky, video technician Charles Brun and
set fabrication project manager Dominique Lebourge from Artefact. Cameleon is the
lighting provider.

The Cléopâtre troupe is on tour until mid- December and returns to the Palais des Sports
in Paris on January 14.  TPi

 

With the kind permission of TPi. See the original article in PDF here.

 

Photography by Kiera Leeming