Bayreuth, Mai 2019: Markgräfin Wilhelmine würde Augen machen: Das weltberühmte Markgräfliche Opernhaus Bayreuth, das unter der preußischen Prinzessin und Lieblingsschwester Friedrichs des Bayreuth, June 2019: Margravine Wilhelmine would be amazed: The world-famous Bayreuth Margravial Opera House, which was built under the Prussian princess and favourite sister of Frederick the Great, was reopened with state-of-the-art audio and video technology. The Buttenheim full service provider SALZBRENNER media planned, installed and commissioned the complex media and control system during the general refurbishment of the building.

The Margravial Opera House, which was included in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2012, impressively illustrates Margravine Wilhelmine’s baroque world of theatre and opera. On stage, visitors can expect an impressive film experience, projected on a large screen in HD image-resolution with 30-bit colour depth. The multi-channel surround-sound system provides optimal sound from more than 15 loudspeakers, which were installed virtually invisibly in accordance with the conservation of historical monuments guidelines.

Fully automatic reproduction of the history film

The history film is played back throughout the year, seven days a week, fully automatically via the higher-level media control system. A large projector projects the image onto two different projection areas: on the iron curtain or a drop-down screen. The data is streamed from an audio/video server. Stage machinery, including the fly bar carrying the screen, as well as the scenic backdrop and hall lighting are controlled fully automatically.

Projector Location presented Technicians with an Exciting Challange

“The projection requirements were huge,” reflects Horst Wolf, product specialist for video technology at SALZBRENNER media.  The main reason is the location of the projector from which the museum film is played back: The 20,000 Ansi Lumen laser projector is not centered in front of the screen but situated in the attic 12 m above the stage. From there, it projects through a tiny wooden hatch far beyond the screen’s centre axis 28 meters from the screen surface. Due to this positioning, the device had to be aligned at an angle of approximately 20° downwards and to the right. Nevertheless, the Upper Franconian technicians succeeded in generating a sharp, geometrically exact image for the two different projection surfaces – all this via a sophisticated geometry correction controlled by the media control system and by using a special lens. “The task was to find a projector with which zoom, focus, lens shift and even the geometry correction values could be recalled 100% precisely via the media control system,” recalls Wolf.