World-famous Tuscan tenor Andrea Bocelli, who has over 90 million record sales to his credit and has sung for four US presidents, recently returned to Saudi Arabia to perform in a truly unique location.
The concert marked the third successive year that Bocelli had performed in the north-western city of Al-Ula, having delighted audiences at the previous two Winter at Tantora festivals. However, it was the first time that the archaeological site of Hegra had been the setting for a music event of this calibre. Once a thriving city in the Nabataean Kingdom (from the 1st century BCE until 106 CE circa), Hegra, listed in 2008 as Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage site, features more than a hundred monumental tombs and thousands of simpler rock-cut versions in a breath-taking setting of red sandstone outcrops and desert.
MBC1 partnered with outside broadcast production company, 7 Production, as broadcast tech provider, which fielded its twin-expansion Unit 10 HD OB truck and related crew.
Fourteen HD cameras were deployed to cover the concert: one on a tripod dolly at each corner of the stage, two mid-way up the audience, two at the back of the audience and another on a 12-meter jimmy jib. The others were mini cameras: two on the piano (one on the keys and the other on the pianist’s face), one stagefront for Bocelli, one on the first violinist and one on a double bass player. A drone-mounted camera for dramatic overhead shots completed the camera set-up,
The audio and lighting contractor for the event was PRG Middle East, the Royal Commission for Al-Ula entrusted Dubai-based Snap with local technical production, and the artist’s production team was led by John Gibbon.
From the point of view of logistics, the brief was to build a stage and a tiered area for the audience in an archaeologically significant area with all the problems connected with entrance, exit and ID checks which caused considerable delay, as well as having to respect a series of restrictions regarding the actual site (smoking was forbidden, as was crossing certain areas or placing equipment in them.)
COVID-related restrictions in Saudi Arabia required the production team (and all other visitors) to arrive with a negative PCR test carried out less than 72 hours before, as well as being subject to on-site quarantine (hotel isolation with meals served in rooms), which varied according to the country from which they arrived. A second negative COVID test on-site reported on a mobile app “freed” visitors to enter other hotels, restaurants, and the concert site.
All this caused delays, which were accentuated by border problems with equipment shipped from the UK, which only arrived on the afternoon of the dress rehearsal, making set-up rather hectic.
Nature inevitably also played a role in the concert, but not only from a visual point of view, as the artist’s sound engineer Andrea Taglia explains, “The huge sandstone rock formations were sufficiently far from the stage area to avoid affecting the concert’s sound, but temperatures and humidity were those typical of deserts, with a great difference in temperature between day and night (45° and 14°). Humidity was always less than 20%, which considerably limited the transmission of high frequencies, so appropriate electronic compensation was required and was achieved using the Air Compensation EQ tool of L-Acoustics’ LA Network Manager, but to reduce necessary correction to a minimum. The dress rehearsal was on the evening before the concert.”
The size of the sound system was obviously adapted to suit the number of spectators and, since there was no stage roof, Taglia opted for a L/R set-up, instead of Bocelli’s standard L/C/R system.
The main L-Acoustics rig comprised L/R hangs, each with fourteen Kara enclosures, and fourteen floor-installed SB28 subwoofers, with an X12 front-fill box atop every second sub. The set-up was completed with an X12 on in-fill duty and another as out-fill on each side of the stage. Monitors on the other hand were a combination of d&b Audiotechnik E8, Meyer Sound UM1P wedges and a Shure Personal Monitor System.
The FOH platform hosted a DiGiCo D7 console which, as the main PA, also handled monitor mixing and was manned by Taglia and Francesco La Camera. La Camera mixed the string ensemble (members of the Arabian Philharmonic) and triggered the Pro Tools system with the recorded tracks necessary for some songs, while Taglia added the recorded tracks, all the soloists and relative effects.
Another D7 installed in a nearby container was on “broadcast” duty and helmed by Willy Antico, who prepared the mix for TV and YouTube playout, sent it to the production team in the OB truck via an AES3 (digital) stereo feed with relative back-up and an analogue connection with a stereo pair and another pair on back-up.
Two distinct mixes were necessary since, in relatively small venues such as Al-Ula, spectators hear opera singers’ powerful voices and any acoustic instruments along with the PA, which obviously isn’t the case for viewers at home, for whom broadcasters also must respect precise loudness and peak levels.
During set-up, Gabriele Turra was responsible for installing and fine tuning the PA with Taglia, and during the show assisted with the technical aspects of the various set changes.
Bocelli performed against a backdrop of twenty carved tombs at the Al-Khuraymat necropolis and his guests were Loren Allred, who sang her platinum-selling "Never Enough" from the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman, his son Matteo, soprano Francesca Maionchi and pianist Eugene Kohn, plus a surprise duet with his nine-year-old daughter Virginia, harmonizing on Leonard Cohen’s iconic “Hallelujah”.
The artists were accompanied by members of the Arabian Philharmonic and the playlist, offering something for everybody, ran from Puccini to Ed Sheeran and ended with a resounding “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot.
The concert’s light rig, designed by Bocelli’s long-standing LD Aldo Visentin, comprised 12 Clay Paky B-Eye Aleda K20, 20 Robe BMFL Blade, 12 SGM Q-7 RGBW LED floods and 16 VariLite 3000 spots, with a pair of Robert Juliat Lancelot 4k followspots highlighting the soloists.
Visentin chose fixtures he’d used regularly in the past, and knew would be able to ensure excellent results for a show that had to be pleasant not only for the live audience, but also for viewers following the broadcast/streaming.
“In my opinion, the Aleda is one of the additive LED light sources on which the wavelengths of the individual (red, green and blue) emitters do not disturb TV cameras, so I use its saturated blue a lot. It is also one of the units in its category with a lot of unique effects. Thanks to its power, Robe’s BMFL is ideal for creating texture effects with haze on open-air stages, and we used three MDG haze generators at the concert. Lastly, although considered by some as outdated, I consider the VL3000 Spots to be instruments capable of creating optically precise effects that are unequalled by more modern units. In this case, I used them to texturize the whole audience area, bearing in mind the live drone coverage of the whole area.”
Another set of fixtures was deployed specifically for accentuating the spectacular surroundings: 36 VariLite 3500 washes for general illumination of the huge rocks, 14 Robe Robin BMFL Blade covering the excavated tombs and 16 SGM P-5 for the desert shrubs and bushes.
Control was courtesy of a networked trio of MA Lighting GrandMA2 consoles (a full-size model for the show, another on backup chores and a “light” version for the natural backdrop lighting).
Visentin operated the show desk, interacting with Eugene O’Connor, DoP for TV coverage and “backdrop” lighting, controlled by PRG op Martin Smit. The scenes used to illuminate the surroundings were chosen with the department responsible for the site’s superintendence.
O’Connor had already worked with Bocelli as lighting designer and DOP on three TV specials for Italian state broadcaster RAI1. “In 2017 for the tenor’s charity foundation, at the Celebrity Fight Night, we did an amazing show in the Colosseum in Rome featuring Elton John, Steven Tyler and many more. In 2018, an event for the same charity in the Verona Arena and in 2019 at the Teatro de Silencio in his home town of Lajatico, near Pisa. At Al-Ula, my biggest challenge was lighting the tombs and rocks that were the backdrop to the stage. Since it is holy ground, the fixtures had to be positioned at quite a distance from the tombs, but with the instruments at our disposal, we ended up with a pretty stunning look on the landscape.”
After the event, Taglia enthused, “In spite of the inevitable complications due to the pandemic and the understandable regulations involved in safeguarding such a valuable site, being able to finally work on a live concert, even if with a limited number of spectators on site, but with a large audience following the concert on TV and via YouTube, was a really emotional experience, thanks to the wonderful setting of the Hegra archaeological site at Al-Ula."