No expense was spared in creating the new state-of-the-art opera house that dominates Oslo's Bjorvika waterfront, an amazing architectural feat of eye-catching La Facciata (white Italian Carrara marble) and Norwegian 'Ice Green' granite (from Sor-Trondelag) that rises out of the fjord like a giant ice floe, at a cost of NOK 4.4 billion (approximately £430 million).

Outside In Norwegian architects Snøhetta's design IS certainly beautiful, yet it's what's on the inside that really counts. Here its vital statistics make for impressive isolated reading; 38,500m2 gross floor area, of which 11,200m2 is dedicated to three audience areas – the 1,364-seat self-explanatory Main Hall (Store Sal), 440-seat so-called Scene 2 or Little Hall (Lllte Sal), plus a 200 audience capacity Rehearsal Stage; stage areas totalling 300m2 – including one of the most advanced opera stages in the world; with 19,100m2 for rehearsal, administration, and workshop duties.

Remaining inside, Snøhetta turned to the combined talents of london-based Theatre Projects Consultants and acoustic designers BrekkeStrandArup, a joint venture between local consultants Brekke & Strand Akustikk and global consultants Arup Acoustics, also responsible for the Copenhagen Opera House. According to Rob Harris, director of Arup's global performing arts business, "Many old opera houses have short reverberation times, making the words sound dear, but the orchestra sounds dry, while modern opera houses tend to have a longer reverberation time to produce a more concert-like orchestral sound. The design brief in Oslo followed this trend, so our challenge was to provide the right balance between the two. It was a pleasure to experience the acoustic first hand at the opening event, and to witness the audience's appreciation for what we have achieved."

Yet construction and acoustics working together in harmony are not the whole story. The Benum Group – more specifically its Oslo-based Norwegian division, Benum siv. ing. AS – were invited to compete for a sound tender for the Oslo Opera House.

The latter's Peder Krohn (Project Manager), Ronald Hernes (Sales Manager), Egil Eide (Product Manager Audio), and Sverre Jøssund (Product Manager Audio) spent three months – and many sleepless nights – at the tail end of 2005 writing and delivering the winning tender.


Sounds Like A Million NOK

The Oslo Opera House's extensive (and expensive) audio system was designed and specified by Swedish Gothenburg based consultants Artifon AS in collaboration with Norway's own Oslo-based COWl AS – the former's Alf Bernston being responsible for both halls, plus their complex, custom designed Stage Management System, while the latter's Frode Bye was closely involved in signal distribution. For their not inconsiderable part in the (initially) dusty proceedings, those hardworking Benum boys provided over 200 SMRT audio distribution boxes, multiple Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers, Stage Tec consoles, Clear Com wireless and wired comms, Medialondistributed paging for the orchestra, and much more besides.

Eide: "Reading the specification it was very clear that it was very close to Stage Tec because they needed two consoles in the Main Hall that should be able to work In parallel, plus another console in the Small Hall, and a fourth console In the recording studio – all working on the same network, That was one part of it – making some effects in the studio, which could then be taken up to here, mixer to mixer, or whatever. So Stage Tec's reputation around Europe for opera houses and theatres was quite important. Of course, it's expensive, but it's very reliable. and it has very few critical cards." Here Eide is referring to the AURUS, Stage Tec's Direct-Access Console, a 40 channel strip version of which resides in the separate control room located at the back of the large Hall, working in parallel with a smaller one (24 channel strip) sited around the Main Hall Itself. Nothing unusual about that, one might well assume, except that the smaller AURUS sits on a platform that cleverly lowers below the floor level, James Bond-style, allowing more seats to take Its place.


Speakeasy

Of course, those flexible, reliable, and expensive consoles and their attendant NEXUS-STAR audio-router systems would be of little use If the resultant resplendent audio could not be heard – and for that the Oslo Opera House largely relies on Renkus-Heinz, thanks, in part to Jøssund's tenacity. "The consultants thought long and hard about what they wanted," he comments. "They had the specifications for every speaker, which we had to match, and we matched them with Renkus-Heinz."

Suitably hooked, electro-acoustic evaluation for loudspeaker system design purposes was carried out by Jøssund – together with Renkus-Heinz's Vice President of R&D, Ralph Heinz; Robert Nilsson, Project leader of Swedish design and installation company OAT AB; and Artifon AB's aforementioned Alf Bernston – using Ahnert Feistel Media Group's EASE (Enhanced Acoustic Simulator for Engineers and EASERA (Electronic and Acoustic System Evaluation and Response Analysis) tools alongside Norsonic's Nor118 sound level meter. Yet, amazingly, according to Eide, "The only time we've actually heard the speakers was during the tests!"

ST4/4Reference Point Arrays

The Main Hall's expansive (and expensive) stage is the locationfor two Renkus-Heinz ST4/4-2T self-powered PowerNet Reference Point Arrays, positioned in moveable loudspeaker towers hidden behind acoustically transparent cloths either side of the stage, together with another pair of centrally-flown ST4/4-21s to form the main Left/Centre/Right system, augmented by four DR18-2 self powered dual l8-inch subwoofers, plus four PN61 PowerNet self-powered loudspeakers providing front fill.

All are controlled by Renkus-Heinz's proprietary R-Control network, interfaced with a Yamaha DME64 Digital Mix Engine, In turn connected to the above-mentioned networked Stage Tec NEXUS-STAR audiorouter systems via AES/EBU. Krohn: "The ST Series cabinets were selected for their very low distortion and colouration, combined with compact dimensions relative to their maximum output level. The latter was important, because of the need for the complete system to be aesthetically unobtrusive, yet able to deliver very high SPLs, when required, for jazz and rock, as well as very pure vocals and solo instrumentalists."

To that end, the Main Hall's loudspeaker system is specified to handle anything up to and including full rock concerts, providing four individually selectable modes, configurable via the Yamaha DME64 Digital Mix Engine's 64-way output matrix, allowing instrumental and vocal signals to be routed to different loudspeaker combinations to suit the performance in question.

Mode 1 ('Song System') configures the main proscenium system as L-C-R, plus fill; Mode 2 ('Instrument System') is configured as Left-Right, plus fill; Mode 3 is designed as Source-Oriented Reinforcement ('SOR'); and Mode 4 provides 5.1 surround sound.

Meanwhile, under-balcony fills are handled by passive Renkus-Heinz PNX81/9 and PNX61 loudspeakers powered by QSC CX5O1 and CX1102 2-channel amplifiers. The latter are housed within dedicated temperature-controlled machine rooms (alongside an array of other rack-mounted equipment, including a 48-channel Digidesign Pro Tools recording system, and associated Studio Network Solutions server, multiple TC Electronic System 6000s, and much more besides), while no fewer than 52 additional QSC-driven PNX61s handle surround and delay fill duties when called upon to do so.

Finally, four more PNX81/9s and PNX61s are flown from the circular Iighting bridge – known as 'The Doughnut' – suspended some 30m above the stalls. For the sake of continuity, Renkus-Heinz is also out in force in the adjacent Little Hall, where a mobile, fully self-powered stage monitor system comprises nine PN81/9s, 10 PN121Ms, eight PN61s, plus DR18-2 subs (elsewhere, the venue also boasts another mobile sound reinforcement system comprising four Renkus-Heinz PN82/9s and two PN112-SUBs, controlled by a Yamaha LS9-16 digital mixing console).


Curtain Call

"Both halls sound beautiful," concludes a justifiably satisfied Eide. "They have very good acoustics, and the response from various critics has been fantastic." Hernes concurs: "For us, it was fantastic when they opened Scene 2, and at its premiere journalists wrote that it was 'heavenly'! The sound engineer did a very good job, also; it almost sounded acoustic when coming from the speakers, so it sounded right."

And on that uplifting note, who better to bring our enjoyable evening visit to Oslo' latest landmark building project to a fitting close than the tolerant man charged with overseeing the long-winded installation of all that wonderful sounding audio equpment? Peder Krohn kindly offers up the following summation on behalf of his hardworking colleagues from Benum: "We are extremely proud; we are also humbled by the task and the consultdnts that we have been working together with, as well as the users. It's been a hard but fantastic journey. We'd like to do it again."

Anyone visiting the memorable Oslo Opera House will want to do so again. In the opening words of King Harald himself, "Here we may experience ourselves and the world we live in. Our challenge will be to make this available to all."