Matrix Premiere for SOH

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Meyer Sound Powers Surround Matrix for Sydney Opera House Premiere

“The system performed faultlessly, and comments about the quality of the audio were uniformly positive... Needless to say, the client was very happy.”
David Claringbold, Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House is not only a busy performing arts centre, but also one of the world’s best-known architectural landmarks. With the distinctive "white sails" of its roofline creating a commanding presence on Sydney’s waterfront, the building is a star in its own right, making it a fitting venue for the high-profile premiere of a major motion picture like The Matrix Revolutions. But it’s no small challenge to transform a hall such as SOH’s Opera Theatre – designed for opera and ballet –- into a suitable sonic setting for the full-throttle 5.1-channel soundtrack of a contemporary action film. "It was essential to the success of this show that every seat had great sound with full surround coverage," says David Claringbold, head of Sydney Opera House’s sound department. To make it work, the department drew on its longstanding experience with self-powered loudspeakers from Meyer Sound, crafting a system that delivered both clarity and power for a full-impact experience.

Home to both Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet, the Opera Theatre is a steeply-raked proscenium arch lyric theatre with a capacity of 1,547. The theatre’s reverberation time of 1.6 seconds, Claringbold points out, "provides a challenge for a cinema presentation, especially with vocal intelligibility and imaging." The challenge was particularly acute with The Matrix Revolutions, he adds, because of the film’s "massive special effects and pumping music. The system needed to be able to handle the full range of the audio spectrum while still being able to reproduce dialog with clarity and intimacy in a room four to five times the size of a normal cinema."

Claringbold says one key element of the project was to provide a left-centre-right (LCR) system behind the cinema screen. "Sydney Opera House owns a comprehensive inventory of Meyer Sound products," he says, "so when the Matrix production was first scoped, it was thought that the M2D would be a perfect choice for the LCR component of the system. Using MAPP Online, I initially concluded that a ground stack of boxes would be the best way to achieve the throw to the rear of the venue."

Plans for a stack were modified when the reality of the event schedule became clear. “Event scheduling was actually the most challenging aspect of the production,” Claringbold says. “Special allowances by both Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet were required to allow this presentation to proceed, because the Opera season bump-out was concluded at 6:00 on the morning of the premiere, and the Ballet – with opening night in three days – began their season bump-in at 8:00 the same morning. To allow the film to go ahead, the sound system had to be rigged and operational within that time frame so that the special floor for the ballet dancers could be laid under the hang of the system.”

Keeping the floor clear meant flying rather than stacking the LCR speakers. “We did a last minute redesign for flown LCR,” Claringbold says, “which had the effect of increasing the amount of LCR cabinets required. As a result, each LCR channel used seven M2D compact curvilinear array loudspeakers and four M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers.”

To handle the extreme low-end demands of the soundtrack, each LCR channel also used two M3D-Sub directional subwoofers. An additional four M3D-Subs were allocated to the low frequency effects (LFE) channel. “To overcome weight problems with rigging and flying the subwoofers,” Claringbold says, “we simply left the M3D-Subs on their dollies and moved them into position when required. This was a very effective way of dealing with the many conflicting requirements for space and time.”

As for the left and right surround channels, Claringbold says 12 UPA-1P compact wide-coverage loudspeakers were arrayed throughout the hall. An additional six UPM-1P ultra-compact wide-coverage loudspeakers were used to get surround coverage in small seating pockets not reached by the UPA-1Ps. Because the movie was so different from the room’s typical fare, Claringbold says, “a number of custom rigging solutions had to be designed and manufactured in-house to allow speakers to be placed in locations previously never needed or thought possible.”

Given the complexity of the set-up and the tight timing, a full technical rehearsal was carried out the week prior to the event. “The editor of the film was present for the technical run,” Claringbold says, “and he said it was outstanding. He was particularly impressed with the quality of the dialogue being reproduced in the farthest reaches of the theatre, as well as the quality of the orchestral score sound.”

The premiere itself was similarly well-received. “It all went smoothly,” Claringbold says. “The system performed faultlessly, and comments about the quality of the audio were uniformly positive, from the Dolby techs – who had been dubious that any kind of acceptable result could be achieved in a hall of that size – to the audience offering their congratulations as they were leaving. Needless to say, the client was very happy.”

March 2004