A scale value for the balance between stage and pit and inside an historical opera house

Abstract

Despite its recognized importance, the balance between the singer and the orchestra inside an opera house has received minor attention in the past. In fact, after the fundamental work of Meyer [J. Meyer, ‘‘Some problems of opera house acoustics,’’ Proceedings of 12th I.C.A., Vancouver, 1986, pp. 13–18], who explained why the solo singing voice can compete with the orchestra, only partial results were reported on this perceived attribute. In this work a reference scale to assess the balance inside an historical opera house is achieved by means of listening tests inside a controlled room. Two scaling experiments were performed based on the acoustical data measured inside an historical opera house, the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, Italy. By doing so all of the relevant acoustical characteristics of a typical Italian-style opera house could be exactly reproduced. Acceptable values do not differ much in the stalls and in the boxes and are within 2 dB(A) to +2.3 dB(A). The transfer of the findings to other types of opera houses is discussed, too.