Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1979 - 34

Sound is an important element of every theatrical form and
essential to many types of performance. In the theatre, sound
has the following functions:
1. To transmit human voice in speech or song; intelligibility
is the first requisite.
2. To identify the locale (bird songs, traffic noises).
3. To establish atmosphere (wind and rain).
4. To create and sustain a specific mood; a combination of
techniques is used to establish locale and atmosphere (filtered speech, soft music).
5. To serve as an arbitrary independent emotional stimulation (music).
6. To serve as an actor (the Great Boyg in Peer Gynt).
7. To reveal character (the aside which is heard but not
spoken).
8. To advance the plot (sound-bridges between scenes or
episodes).
These functions may be employed singly or in combination,
independently or counterpointing or reinforcing their equivalents in the visual component of the play. To fully exploit the
potentialities, it must be possible for the audience to hear any
sound from any source, no source or a moving source, with
any spectrum, at any intensity, from any distance or direction,
and with any reverberant quality.
Though composers and playwrights seek control of sound,
the accomplishment of such control has been hindered by
physical circumstance. The violin can produce only so many
dB. The soprano can only reach a certain pitch. The organ
can sound only from the permanent location of the organ
pipes, irrespective of the requirements of the setting.
Aside from stereophonic projection of sound in motion pictures and records played backstage, the control of sound has
progressed little since Aristophanes. Electronic control overcomes traditional technical limitations and offers the play-

Fig. 1. Equipment layout for Faust.
co

TROL
LOUDSPEAKERS FOR ORGA

LOUDSPEAKER IN PROSCENIUM
FOR MARGUERITA
FLOWN LOUDSPEAKERS
FOR ORGAN & CHORUS

MICROPHONES FOR
MARGUERITA LOCA TED
IN SET PIECES OR
PROPS
LOUDSPEAKERS
FOR ORGAN

MICROPHONE FOR
ORGAN

LOUDSPEAKERS FOR
MEPHISTO FLOWN
AT HEAD HEIGHT

CONTROL

MICROPHONE IN TENT FOR MEPHISTO

D-

MICROPHONE IN
STUDIO FOR CHORUS

wright a wider scope. I should like to present a few examples
of the application of sound control to the problems of the
theatre, and to illustrate them through familiar dramatic episodes.
I cite first the scene in the garden in Gounod's Faust. Gardens are acoustically dead. The scene in the church in the
same opera should be highly reverberant. The two scenes
should differ from each other acoustically, if the music and the
locale of the scenes are not to be in conflict. And since it is
easy to accomplish a long decay, the contrast between the
open garden and the reverberant church can be accomplished by giving the music in the scene in the church a long
decay. Marguerite's prayer at the opening of the scene, which
is sung a capella, is exceptionally effective when the acoustical characteristics of the opera house are controlled to resemble a majestic cathedral. In this instance the control gives
the locale realism and at the same time establishes the desired mood for the scene.
Herbert Graf has proposed that in this scene Mephisto
should not appear on the stage, but that his voice alone
should create an unseen barrier which Marguerite cannot
cross. This technique has been tried and found to be very effective. Mephisto's voice with reverberant authority stands before Marguerite wherever she turns. The supernatural effect is
convincing and the distraction introduced by Mephisto's appearance is avoided.
The first illustration shows the location of the electronic apparatus for Faust. The organ and the voices of the villagers
come from backstage, the voices of Mephisto and Marguerite
originate on stage, and the reverberant sound is projected in
the house above the audience.
The Pilgrim's chorus in Tannhauser no longer needs to
simulate its remoteness from the stage by pianissimo or to indicate its approach through gradually singing louder. By reflecting the song from the wall of the house, the impression
can be created that the choir is approaching the stage from a
distance. And when the chorus finally appears on the stage,
the Hallelujahs can have a presence and intensity which reenforce the dramatic quality of the scene.
Sounds which originate from an invisible moving source
give the Magic Flute an authentic magical quality. In Shakespeare's The Tempest, the invisible Ariel plays his tabor and
pipe while he flies about over the audience. The technique by
which a moving sound source is accomplished consists in relative output control of the signal going to various loudspeakers so that sound appears to come from any desired location. In Sidney Howard's Madam Will You Walk, Kurt Weill's
celestial music appears to be summoned out of the sky to surround the audience.
One operatic convention consists in having the orchestra
take over the dynamics of a sequence when great intensity is
required and the human voice cannot sing any louder. In directing the first stereophonic (3-channel) recording of the Immolation scene in Gotterdammerung, Leopold Stokowski had
Brunhilde's electronically-controlled voice dominate the orchestra throughout the progressive buildup of the sequence.
This allowed the attention of the audience to remain concentrated upon the singer.
Through selective amplification a desired balance in the orchestra can be established and maintained. The conductor
can get enough bass without overloading the pit with bull fiddles as Wagner had to do.
When a transparent ectoplasmic ghost is used in Hamlet, it
is important that the ghost speak with a voice from the grave
which must at the same time be understandable. Spectrum
control makes this effect possible, by selective amplification
of the desired components of the actor's voice. For the ghost
sequence, the movement of the voice so that it comes from
the ghost wherever he is, is accomplished by the same technique as that used in moving the chorus in Tannhauser.

*Presented October 14, 1960 at the Twelfth Annual Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, New York. Reprinted from Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, July 1961, Vol. 9, No.3, pp. 184-186.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1979