Are opera performances in open-air theaters unamplified?
Just curious how the acoustics would be if unamplified?
The St. Louis Municipal Opera (musical theater, not real opera) is open air. The performers are miked and there are speakers throughout the audience area.
The space is built into the side of a hill to form an amphitheater. Even unamplified, the acoustics are pretty good, especially considering it seats 11,000.
Open air theaters are the reason opera was invented.
In ancient Greece (and I suppose other culturally advanced civilizations of the times), there were the famous open-air amphitheaters where the great playwrights plays were performed. There was no electronic amplification, of course.
When a person is singing (as opposed to speaking), one can belt out a tune at the top of one’s lungs and it can carry out for the whole audience to hear. It’s much harder to speak loudly when simply speaking (as opposed to singing), without sounding like you’re shouting or yelling. That is, you can’t easily shout loudly and still make it sound like a normal conversation with the volume control turned up.
It was found that singing overcomes that limitation, and thus opera as an performing art form evolved.
I learned all the above in a History of Art introductory class I took at community college.
It all depends on the venue, whether it was built before electronic amplification was ubiquitous, retrofitted, or modern. An outdoor place I’ve been to most frequently in the last few years is a new outdoor venue (Pritzker Pavillion), and I would posit someone singing from the stage would be difficult to hear from even the middle of the seated area, and nigh impossible from the lawn. The place is completely dependent on electronic amplification.
Beat me to it. I’ve been a season ticket holder at the Muny since 1994.
In Virginia we have Wolf Trap’s Filene Center which is an open amphitheater that hosts a large variety of musical shows. I think a genius designed it, because although the performers are mic’ed and amplified, the acoustics of the place are marvellous. I get the feeling when I’m there that the music bounces off the wooden posts and ceiling of the place and are projected out toward the lawn - even without amplification. So the amps just make it more.
We’ve enjoyed everything from the National Symphony to Heart to Buddy Guy there and they were all wonderful.
Theaters, indoors or outdoors, were (at their best) a wonder of acoustic design, before the days when electronic amplification was a thing. Walls, ceilings, back-drops, were of carefully shaped parabolic design that could focus sound out toward the audience. Thus, for example, the classic clamshell backdrop of many outdoor amphitheaters, and the parabolic ceilings of many indoor theaters.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir auditorium is claimed to be a wonder of old-fashioned (pre-electronic) acoustics. It’s a huge auditorium (if you haven’t done the public tour of Mormon Square in Salt Lake City, be sure you do if you’re ever out that way). It is said you can hear a pin drop from the stage all the way to the rear-most balcony seats.
Thanks for the responses. I was actually wondering if Caballe’s famous Orange Norma performance was unamplified. I’ve tried to search for the answer on the webs but can’t get the answer anywhere.
Many, many years ago I visited Théâtre antique in Orange on a school trip and we got one of our classmates (inevitably the one who was always the star in the school plays) to test the famous acoustics. To be honest, the result was slightly disappointing.
But I would nevertheless be very surprised if they needed amplification for opera performances, least of all for Caballé in her prime.
Caballè even in her prime wasn’t known for her vocal heft or power. I’m wondering how her exquisite pianissimos would have registered in an open air theater.