Martin Lighting at Seattle’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall

Marion Oliver McCaw Hall at Seattle Center is the region’s new premier performance hall. Home to Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, the state-of-the-art, 2,900-seat auditorium underwent a major design modification, completed last year, which significantly reconfigured the auditorium to improve sightlines and acoustics. The result has placed McCaw Hall among the top performance halls in the world.

The overhaul included all new facility systems including, for the first time in the venue’s history, an automated lighting system. Patty Mathieu, Production Manager at McCaw Hall, commented, “The choice to spend money on a moving light system was a big decision. Both the opera and ballet were interested in increasing the amount of moving light technology that they would use in their productions. Up to that point the opera was the only organization that had used it in the old opera house and they had always rented equipment in. They felt that if they had it in house they would use the technology more, as a design tool, and it would save on their operating budget as well.”

Shoot-out
The major moving light manufacturers were invited for a shoot-out in which a design team and key players from Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle Center participated. The team included Patty Mathieu, who at that time coordinated the specifications and purchasing of equipment for Seattle Center Foundation; Robert Schaub, Technical and Facilities Director of Seattle Opera; Randall Chiarelli, Technical Director and Resident Lighting Designer at Pacific Northwest Ballet; Jill Crary, Project Manager with Seattle Center; Marty Pavloff, Stage Crew Chief for Seattle Center; and Richard Erwin from Seattle Center sound department.

The result - a decision to acquire a full Martin rig consisting of ten MAC 2000 Performances, eight MAC 2000 Wash and six MAC 2000 Profile. Pacific Northwest Theatre Associates (PNTA) of Seattle supplied the MAC 2000s to McCaw Hall.

Sound issues
One of several key criteria included the amount of fan noise the equipment would generate and how little noise both the opera and ballet would tolerate. Patty comments, “We found that now that the hall is open we have excellent acoustics almost to a fault in that we hear everything, the squeak of the dancers shoes on the floor for example. When we did the shootout we listened to the three different manufacturers equipment with and without lamps on and found across the board that the Martin equipment was the most quiet.”

That “hyper concern” about fan noise was a major factor. Acoustically, McCaw Hall is as quiet as they come. Robert Schaub, Technical and Facilities Director of Seattle Opera, comments on the sound issue, “The difference between opera and other medium is that I can have a singer walk on stage and say ‘turn those lights off’ and they’re gone.” (Although he admits that hasn’t happened.) “We have an NC (Noise Criteria) rating of 18, which is almost as quiet as a recording studio so sound is an issue - we’re fighting a huge volume of noise. When you design a new house and spend the time and energy in modern technology, and for example your HVAC system sound level is down, the rigging is quieter and different aspects are quieter, the lighting gear is getting louder. There isn’t a moving head that doesn’t have a noise issue but the Martin fixtures were quieter than the rest. I think in the world of opera the line has now been drawn in the sand. I think there is a challenge to manufacturers to reduce the noise levels.”

Other criteria
There were several other important criteria to consider. Patty explains, “The second factor in choosing a moving light was color rendition, being able to use an arc source to get the punch that we wanted but having color mixing technology that was smooth enough and capable of getting the theatrical tints while not being limited to the rock n roll color palette.

“The third factor was the ability to do a smooth pan and tilt, for example a diagonal across a screen with minimal visible stepping. Using these in a theatrical environment we wanted them to be as smooth and unobtrusive as possible. It was all about not having them be seen as a moving light effect the vast majority of the time.” The stability of the color temperature of the 1,200-watt lamp and smooth fading capabilities were also key criteria.

Robert Schaub stated, “As far as salesmanship, brightness, flatness of field, we liked everything about the Martin fixtures and so did most of our designers. And in the end that’s who I went to, I went to the designers that design for Seattle Opera and asked what do you want and they wanted the Martins. Our biggest production is our Ring Cycle, which we do every four years and that was the most important element. The fixtures were critically reviewed and they beat the competition in those categories. Overall the fixtures have lived up to expectations.”

“We used the system in a temporary facility first and the beauty of that was that we had the chance to ‘troubleshoot’, but there weren't any troubles. With all the new systems to contend with when we moved it to McCaw Hall, it was great to know the moving lights worked as we expected,” Patty added.

Seattle Opera
So far the Martin fixtures have mostly been used on Seattle Opera productions, a troupe that has developed into one of the leading opera companies in the United States. Productions on which the Martin gear has been used include Parsifal, Carmen, Ariadne auf Naxos and Girl of the Golden West.

The MAC 2000s have been used to achieve a variety of looks from laying down texture to cyc lighting to special effects. Connie Yun, Assistant Lighting Designer at Seattle Opera, describes two specific looks. “In the Wagner opera Parsifal for example, in the Knights Hall scene, the scenery lifts up to become a vertical surface and within that vertical surface is a slit lined with MR11 lamps which glow red. To complement that we took three MAC 2000 Performances and shuttered them to highlight that slit. In the opera that is when the main character Parsifal meets Amfortas who suffers from an incurable wound. Using the effects package we made the slit pulsate as if it was a wound, a pulsing breath, giving life to it. The set reflects the wound that would never heal architecturally.”

In a March production of Ariadne auf Naxos the MAC 2000 Performances’ animation wheel was used to great effect. “There is a scene where Ariadne has been abandoned to a desolate shore, and in that scene we created a sense of water movement using the Performance’s animation wheel,” Connie explains. “They were also used for color morphing on top of the animation water effects to give it more of a lushness when later in that scene the god Bacchus appears. There was a lot of color shifting in that show to indicate the ebb and flow of the dynamics of who was performing on stage at the time.”

PNTA
Sales manager Doug Overstreet of PNTA, supplier of the MACs, commented, ”The fixtures were purchased prior to the renovation being completed and were first used offsite in a temporary building. I don’t think the choice of the 2000s was a hard decision. It became clear and there was a consensus that the 2000s were the fixtures they wanted. They are a very mature product. It was a fun job because they sold themselves.” Doug adds that thus far there has been very little service to do.

“Every one on the tech committee felt that the company of Martin was going to be the most supportive, the most innovative - we all liked the company the best in terms of feeling like they would be around for years to come,” Patty concluded.