‘The barber of Seville’ is staged with Ayrton Perseo

In the staging of this Rossini opera, which has been seen at the Marín Center, the luminaires have been used Ayrton Perseo-S.

The San Francisco Opera has used Ayrton Perseo-S luminaires in the outdoor production of Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville’ at the Marin Center in San Rafael, California. Perseo spotlights are compact multifunction luminaires with an IP65 degree of protection and developed for intensive outdoor use.

The Barber of Seville, directed by Matthew Ozawa, ran from April 23 to May 15 at the Marin Center, near San Francisco, where the public parked their cars by the lagoon with the Marin Hills in the background. From their vehicles they saw Rosini’s opera, on a stage custom built for the production, with large Led screens.

“We’ve had concerts before in Golden Gate Park, but nothing of this magnitude has been produced abroad in the three years I’ve been with the company,” says Justin Partier, lighting director at the San Francisco Opera. “We looked at various locations and found the Marin Center to be the best location. So we built a stage and used the set of a Fidelio production not yet celebrated, in a new configuration.

Partier says the lighting team was looking for a fixture that offered masking, gobos, color and diffusion, and was also small enough to fit within the set. The spotlights also had to be able to withstand the elements during the three weeks of performance of the opera. Perseus-S met all those requirements.

“The luminaires had to be small and bright, as they were the only way to illuminate the stage from the side and standing light positions,” explains Partier. “They also had to be suitable for outdoor use.”

The gobos of Ayrton Perseo, which distributes Stonex, were widely used in production and he explains that “every time the four rear walls of the video panels were in the open position, we painted gobos on them with the prism.” They were especially effective in the storm and shave sequences.