ETC Desire illuminates Semperoper

Dresden's popular Semperoper, the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper (Saxon State Opera), is a traditional and prestigious venue. Within the venue, a new concert hall was recently constructed, with an elaborate stage setup, stylishly integrated into the magnificent architecture. ETC products were selected to provide a suitable stage lighting solution, with fixtures including 80 Desire D40 Studio Tungsten and 70 Desire D40 Lustr +.

Fabio Antoci, the venue's lighting designer, specified a combination of 80 Desire D40 Studio Tungsten and 70 Desire D40 Lustr+ LED fixtures from ETC. The D40 Tungsten provides halogen-quality light with a colour temperature of 3000K and a brilliant, high output. The D40 Lustr + LED fixture, with its x7 Color System, offers an incredible range of richly saturated colour and pastels not available in conventional LED fixtures.

The renowned lighting designer selected these luminaires for several reasons. In addition to the reliability and quality of the lights, Antoci admires their quiet, fanless operation, and, in particular, their outstanding colour rendering. Every year, special concerts are held in which various colour moods are required in addition to classic, bright light. Furthermore, the lighting solution also had to be suitable for television. The concert hall has already had its television premiere - the Staatskapelle performed special a concert that was broadcast on German TV channel ZDF. "Based on all these requirements, I chose a combination of Tungsten and Lustr + fixtures from ETC," said Antoci.

Additionally, two specific provisos had to be met. Firstly, the fixtures needed to be small and unobtrusive so the magnificent impression of the concert hall would not be negatively affected. Secondly, they had to be a suitable replacement for the 1000 lux 5kW halogen lights of the old concert hall so the musicians would still be able to read their music with ease. The compact D40 fixtures met both of these strict requirements. The musicians remarked to Antoci that the light generated by the new fixtures was "most pleasant". And the company that constructed the concert room described the light as "balanced". Antoci is more than happy with the result: "Bernd Klempnow working for the Sächsische Zeitung (Sächsische newspaper) wrote: 'Two large chandeliers provide the light to illuminate the hall'. When you create the impression that that the light comes from two chandeliers and not from over 100 Desire then the goal is achieved!"