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January 2016 entertainment, presentation, installation

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Paris Merveilles

PLUS: d&b audiotechnik’s SoundPLAN • Turbo’s Flashlight Returns • Edinburgh in LightsUniversity of South Wales • Preview: ISE 2016 • LD Benoit Richard In Profile . . . and more!

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New Order Live The full show production report

Franco Dragone’slatest production

Jan_Cover:Cover 12/01/2016 14:52

Dragone’sParis Merveilles

Performance photos by Gregory Mairet

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Theatre impresario Franco Dragone has turned his considerable

energies towards the Lido de Paris, the famed cabaret venue on the

Champs-Elysées, where a brand new show is impressing audiences.

Mike Clark reports for LSi . . .

In 1946, Joseph and Louis Clérico, two brothers ofItalian origin, working in the construction trade,decided on a radical change of lifestyle andbought the world-famous Paris Lido, located at 78,Avenue des Champs Élysées, turning it into a sumptuous venue that attracted the Frenchcapital’s élite with a completely new concept inentertainment: dinner with a show - a format thatproved incredibly successful and would beimitated worldwide.

Almost seventy years later, Sodexo Sports et Loisirs,the current owners of the legendary venue (home tothe statuesque dance group the Bluebell Girls)recently invested 25 million euros in themodernisation of the Lido and the production of a spectacular new show by Franco Dragone, whohas practically revolutionised the art of revue withParis Merveilles, giving it his unmistakable trademark,with in-depth use of breath-taking visual effects andcutting edge technology throughout the show.

Dragone’s own success story also has Italianorigins: his family moved from southern Italy toBelgium when he was a young child. Followingdrama studies, he began creating his own shows;emotionally-charged, living works of art. In the1980s, “action theatre” crossed the Atlantic andreached Canada. Franco followed suit and soonjoined the nascent Cirque du Soleil and played a keyrole in its planetary ascent during the 1980s and‘90s, signing no less than 10 shows over 12 years ascreative director. He founded Franco DragoneEntertainment Group in 2000, and his creations andproductions have been seen by over 75 millionspectators worldwide.

Italian sound designer and sound engineer CorradoCampanelli began his career at the age of 19 as a sound engineer and programmer on cruise linersworldwide. This was followed by a period in London,where he worked as a sound programmer intheatres, theme parks and tourist attractions. In

2009, he began his “adventure” with FrancoDragone in Macao, working on the creation of TheHouse of Dancing Water (see LSi January 2011), andlater Taboo. In 2014, he worked with Director DanieleFinzia Pasca on the Olympic and Paralympic Gamesceremonies in Sochi, before returning to work withDragone on the production of the Han Show inWuhan, China.

Campanelli explains: “The audio team at the Lidohas two permanent members - audio chief SamuelPetit and sound engineer Samy Bensifi. My work asthe show’s sound designer began with the arrival ofguests in the hall with an appropriate selection ofbackground music. The show lasts approximately100 minutes, with no interval. The music, composedby Yvan Cassar, is played back on a redundantQLab 3 system, with QWidget remote and a Novation Launchpad for the effects. The audioconsole is a Yamaha CL5 and a multi-track recordingis made of the show every night with a 64-trackSound Devices 970. Everything is interfaced viaDante, which also enables us to switch the inputs inthe patch, and also to run a ‘virtual’ soundcheck,using the show’s recordings.”

For the first time in the Lido’s history, a singer is atthe heart of the show - Manon, an incredible mezzo-soprano chosen by Dragone. As well as thesinger, two musicians - an accordion player and a violinist - play live during the show, along with anentire mechanical orchestra, made up of numeroussmall robotic arms that play real acousticinstruments (drums, percussion, piano, marimba,xylophone, glockenspiel etc.).

Campanelli continues: “The arms are controlled viaMIDI by an Ableton Live session interfaced with a custom application based on Max MSP, triggeredby one of the two musicians with a remote controller.Thanks to the control of the velocity, it is possible togive the right ‘touch’ to the robotic arms and makethem a slightly more ‘human’.”


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One of Campanelli’s collaborators, ChristianZuniga, was mainly responsible for all theaspects involving the mechanical orchestra.Campanelli’s work, on the other hand,included the mixing, the production of all thesound effects and surround programming -in short, all the aspects of the audio from thebeginning to the end of the guests’experience, working in close collaborationwith the composer and participating activelyin the final stage of the creation of the music.

“I obviously had to bear in mind therequirements of the in-house teamresponsible for the day-to-day running of theshow, as far as set-up time was concerned.The console had to be programmed in themost intuitive possible manner, so that, in theevent of automation problems, the operatoris able to run the show manually. A consecutive, well organised cue listsimplifies this and, if through time anychanges have to be made, the programmingmust be understandable to everybody.”

Supplied by Paris-based Best Audio, theMeyer Sound audio system consists of threemain clusters of UPQ-1P enclosures, withthree left and right and four in the centre,plus two ceiling-mounted 11000-LFCsubwoofers and left/centre/right delay hangs,each with three UPJ-1XP VariO speakers andsix UPJunior VariO loudspeakers completethe main room’s Meyer system. On-stagemonitoring and back-stage cueing arecatered for by two ceiling-mounted MJF-212A stage monitors and four UP-4XPloudspeakers respectively. A Galileoloudspeaker management system with threeGalileo 616 processors handles optimisationand signal distribution.

The under-balcony and balcony delayloudspeakers are from EAW, part of theLido’s original rig, overhauled and re-installed in “as new” condition. Thesurround system (with two delay lines) is alsopart of the previous EAW setup.

Belgian video content designer Patrick Neysbegan his career with Franco Dragone aseditor of the video content for A New Day,Céline Dion’s Las Vegas show. Immediatelyafter, he set off on the Britney Spears worldtour, then the European tour of Holiday onIce. He explains: “Indeed, I’ve done almostall the Dragone shows since Céline Dion’s A New Day in 2003 and Le Rêve in 2005. At that time I was working as a 2D animatorand editor of the video content. I really beganto work as video content designer on TheHouse of Dancing Water in Macau in 2010.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity ofworking on several very interestingproductions, including (in 2013) the visualpoem in Abu Dhabi Story of a Fort and in2014 on the mega Chinese production TheHan Show in Wuhan. I’ve also worked onmany of the other show and events createdby Dragone.

“The Lido project was one of my major worksin Europe - it wasn’t the biggest, but for me itwas as important, if not more so, as theprojects done in the US, Asia or Middle East,since we were almost at home, so there wasa great deal of artistic pressure, for obviousreasons.”

The team only had four weeks for creation,and had to be ready to answer Franco’s‘shaking the stage’ indications, as Dragone


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likes to describe the provocative way inwhich he creates his unique shows - pushingartists and designers to the limit, until he getssomething from everyone, and has all therequired ingredients.

Neys’ brief was to deliver content with a timeless Parisian style and “no cheesycabaret looks”, able to be projected for a 10-year run. The result was a very largeselection of themes and elements to proposeand adapt ‘live’ in the venue.

Neys continues: “The biggest ‘tableau’ wasfor Lady Paris, a 4K animation of the mainsites and monuments of Paris, which evolvedlike a giant pop-up book. We used five 21kPanasonic projectors and Artixium LED wallsas a backdrop with a pitch of 6mm, plusmoving Artixium LED screens with a pitch of4mm.

The on-going challenge was to find a harmonious balance between the powerfulLED and the lower projection intensity feelingdue to the fabrics . . . we had around 300lux/sq.m, but we were projecting on a blackcurtain, a deep blue curtain and a chain mailmesh curtain. So we had three layers ofcurtains in the depth of the set, which wassometimes very challenging, for the balanceof three different images, three differentcontrasts, three different proportions andthree different textures.

“Thanks to a powerful Photon media server[from Montreal-based VYV Corporation], wewere able to bypass some of those complexissues to create and work our images. Weworked like painters working together, usingtwo Mac Pros with Adobe Suite and an AjaVideo Card and the Photon itself creates a whole ‘tableau’ simultaneously on all thesurfaces.”

Neys discovered the Artixium LED screenson a tour for the Belgian artist Stroma, andwas very impressed with its deep black, withno reflections. “The image is totally stable(very high refreshment rate) and really closeto a painting, we could really play with hardgradients, low gamma images, long fades.The screen was really good to deliver thosedifficult requests and we are very happy withthis choice.”

He continues: “We had already worked with46 Panasonic 3D pro DZ21K WUXGA videoprojectors in 2013 on the Story of a Fort showin Abu Dhabi and are very satisfied with theircolours, noise (49dB) and powerful lamps,with a life of approximately 2000 hours.”

Four 4-output Photon media servers areused on the show. Neys works a lot with VYVCorporation, who developed the Photon.Photon’s timeline interface makes it simple toauthor shows using real-time effects andcompositing, allowing for immediate

changes and in-rehearsal iteration. Foradded interactivity and synchronisation, allparameters can be slaved to externalcontrols (UDP, Art-Net, MIDI, SMPTE time-code, audio analysis). Photon networksare easily controlled and are built withrobustness and reliability in mind, thecompany says.

As far as video content production wasconcerned, Neys worked with a team of fiveanimators and graphic artists provided byDragone Studio.

“All of them have worked on many of theshows I did for Dragone or others . . . We have really developed our own way ofworking to respond specifically to Franco’smodus operandi, which can be very difficultand ‘painful’ but full of surprises.”

Karl Boucheker has been lighting and videomanager at the Lido since 2003, at thebeginning of the last Lido show, Bonheur,and became head of lighting and video withStéphane Roumegieras in 2009. He explainsthe factors that distinguish this productionfrom others he has worked on or seen, “Thatis first time we’ve worked with less ‘real’scenery and have a show based on videomapping (five videos projectors) and LEDwalls (one fixed and four movable). Thatgreatly affected the way we created thelighting, because videos and light must be

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used in a coherent way in order to create perspective or opticalillusion effects for the audience.

“This is the also first time we’ve used a 1000 MB Network and Wi-Fiwith the lighting system control and [Photon] video mapping system.Here at the Lido, the video system is being used for the first in Francein a fixed venue.”

Among the difficulties to be overcome in obtaining the requiredresults, the lighting manager indicated the smoke system: “This is themost unstable part of the set-up to use, since smoke is never thesame for each show, as it depends on temperature and even outsideweather conditions.”

The rig at Boucheker’s disposal includes 22 Philips Vari-Lite VL4000,18 Martin MAC Viper Performance, 28 MAC Quantum Profile, 35Ayrton NandoBeam-S6 compact moving head fixtures in extendedmode (enabling each of the units’ LED sources to be controlledindividually), five Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20, 124 ETC Source Four750W, 11 Ayrton Arcaline 2 LED bars, 52 PAR 64s and 36 PAR 38s.

Boucheker concludes, regarding the Clay Paky B-EYE fixtures: “Weuse the B-Eyes for back- and down-lighting effects, and they werechosen for their 37 independent LED heads.”

The show’s MA Lighting control system consists of a GrandMA2 Lightconsole, GrandMA2 on PC with a programmer wing (on back-upduty) and GrandMA2 onPC with a Surface Pro 3 tablet.

Scenographer Jean Rabasse was, without a doubt, faced with one ofthe most complex tasks. Revisiting the Lido scenery was a greatchallenge, even for someone who has been awarded two Césarawards and collaborated on prestigious shows like the OlympicGames ceremonies. However, supported by Dragone’s technicalteam, Rabasse came up with the goods and audiences are enthralled

Top: Sound designer Corrado Campanelli at the Yamaha CL5 console.

Above: Lighting and video manager Karl Boucheker at the MA2.


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by the monumental staircase with its art nouveau spirals, the five-metre high chandelier with its 40,000 crystals emerging from thedepths, and his designs depicting both shady and aristocratic Paris.

Lifting equipment specialist Comete, headquartered in the easternFrench town of Anthon and a member company of the Fayatconstruction group, was entrusted with the complete overhaul of theLido’s stage machinery. The company replaced the main 140-ton liftwhich moves a 20,000 litre swimming-pool, a 7x7 metre ice skating-rink, a scenery platform and a dance floor, together with the liftmechanism of the190sq.m dress circle, where the tables for the 400-plus audience are laid out. There is also a platform for theenormous chandelier, a liner deck, a three-ton capacity platform thatraises the orchestra from two levels below the stage and a rearplatform with 6-ton capacity that moves up four levels, giving thepossibility of creating three different sets of stairways.

For figure fans and trivia lovers, two years’ preparation and four monthsof rehearsals preceded the first night of Paris Merveilles. Sixty artists,including the famous Bluebell Girls, alternate on stage every night anda team of 33 behind the scenes takes care of the 600 costumes, whichinclude 2 million Swarovski crystals and 100 kilos of ostrich feathers,and were made in Dragone’s workshops in La Louvière, Belgium.

Regarding Paris Merveilles Dragone states: “The revue is a one of a kind in the world of entertainment, an infinitely noble genre whosecodes have always fascinated me. To create my first show in Pariswas already a challenge, the fact the Lido is such a legendarycabaret makes it even more demanding. This is the kind of challengethat will force you to push and surprise yourself in order to captivateothers. I put my dreams, heart and soul into this revue, so it will notonly catch the eye, but also touch the soul of each spectator. Overlyambitious? To me, the stage is a sacred place, and at a time whenthe world is increasingly disenchanted, our mission is to bring joy andbrightness in people’s lives.”

Top: Photon control system with Stephane Roumegieras.

Above: Mechanical band and musicians (photo: Julien Panie).


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