Staged for a sell-out crowd of 78,000 at the Stade de France in Paris, a recent production of Verdi’s “Aida” featured a 130-piece choir, the 90-piece Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and more than 550 extras. The truly international production was led by Canadian executive producer Francois Leroux and Dutch producer Peter Kroone, and featured a Bulgarian choir and ballet, a Romanian director, a French orchestra, an Italian conductor, a Canadian sound designer, a Polish choreographer, Russian and Spanish soloists, German camels and an American eagle.
Sound designer Guy Desroschers specified an L-Acoustics V-DOSC/dV-DOSC P.A. system, and Innovason and Soundcraft digital consoles for FOH. Stan Taal, a former recording engineer for Philips Classics, mixed the orchestra. Louis Buskens managed the challenge of the peripatetic choir by mounting a DPA 4061 mini-ature mic on the shoulder of every fourth choir member. A total of 36 DPA 4061s were allocated to the choir, with a further 16 4061s for the eight soloists. All the electronics were Sennheiser, and the soloists were also equipped with in-ear monitoring systems.
