Ground-breaking audio technologies play a crucial role in Death and the Powers, as we learn in this excellent article posted by Duran Audio. The writer interviewed Theatre Sound Designer and Consultant Chris Full, who has been working closely with composer Tod Machover and his M.I.T. Media Lab team on the project. “Tod and I first collaborated on Skellig (the Opera) at The Sage Gateshead which combined a classic operatic orchestra with synthesised instruments and real world sample textures using a mixture of traditional sound re-enforcement and Ambisonic encoding to immerse the audience in an enveloping sound scape,” Full says. “For ‘Death and the Powers’ our goal was to build on what we achieved on Skellig by increasing the versatility of the sound environment and adding a layer of real-time manipulation of the sound sources and effects.”
“I heard a demonstration of WFS [Wave Field Synthesis] a few years ago and immediately thought of how amazing this technology would be in reproducing an immersive audio environment – the whole audience area is the sweet spot!”. The problem was that at that time there wasn’t any way to drive the DSP in order to dynamically position and control sources in the soundfield.” The article goes on to describe how Full and the M.I.T. Media Lab team met these challenges to create “the world’s first WFS system specifically designed for theatrical, cinema, entertainment and theme park applications.”
Reference:
Duran Audio – Death and the Powers Monaco: MIT teams up with AXYS for a Royal Premiere in Monaco
Opera of the Future 