Acoustics in the restoration of Italian historical opera houses: A review

Prodi, Nicola; Pompoli, Roberto

doi:10.1016/j.culher.2016.03.004

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…As a first result it was found that the balustrade is able to vibrate and re-radiate effectively up to nearly 3kHz, which is highly significant in the context of the singing voice since the most relevant formant frequencies appear to be covered for the most part. Second, the sound is radiated effectively from the side box walls and slight less from the box ceiling [25]. Of course, these results prompt the question of the audibility of re-radiated sound and of its contribution to the overall acoustic quality in the boxes for closer listeners and in the stalls for more distant ones.…”

Section: The Box As a Secondary Sound Sourcementioning

confidence: 97%

From Tangible to Intangible Heritage inside Italian Historical Opera Houses

Prodi

2019

Heritage

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Historical opera houses in Italy have been the place for the development of a relevant part of the National musical tradition and their design is paired with a peculiar acoustical fingerprint. Due to its relevance this can be regarded as an intangible heritage embedded in the tangible heritage constituted by the theatre building itself. In particular the presence of fairly deep lateral enclosures opened to the main hall volume, called the “boxes,” is of paramount importance for the implications it had on the listening experience perceived by the public. For instance, the positions in the box recess had a much less favourable sound field compared to the frontal ones located at the box opening towards the hall. In this work the need for the box design is briefly recalled from an historical perspective and then the sound field in the boxes is described as the combination of several sound reflections from specific interior surfaces. It is seen how the related listening experience can vary in a remarkable manner while moving from boxes at different tiers. This characteristic greatly differentiates historical opera houses from modern ones, where one of the most valuable attribute is a limited change in acoustics over large audiences. The acoustical environment of historical halls and inside boxes in particular was important in building up the ear of the Italian opera goers, thus a close consideration of the peculiarities of the intangible heritage is necessary in case of restorations and cannot be overlooked.

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Section: The Box As a Secondary Sound Sourcementioning

confidence: 97%

From Tangible to Intangible Heritage inside Italian Historical Opera Houses

Prodi

2019

Heritage

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“…The same fate, in 1996, for La Fenice theatre in Venice. After these unfortunate events, Italian scholars were committed to recognise the acoustics of Italian Historical Opera House as intangible cultural heritage [69][70][71][72].…”

Section: The 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Afterwards, case studies were documented by Cocchi et al [92,93] [98] that the interest in this field increased. The acoustics of historical opera house was recognized as intangible culturale heritage [71,72].…”

Section: Refurbishmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Italian-Style Opera Houses: A Historical Review

D’Orazio

2020

Applied Sciences

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Attending an opera involves a multi-sensory evaluation (acoustical, visual, and more), cultural background and other emotional parameters. The present work aims to investigate the historical development of Italian-style opera houses, from the 16th century until today. Called “Italian” due to their origin, they developed thanks to the mutual influence of the genre and the building characteristics. Furthermore, the acoustics of historical opera houses is now considered as intangible cultural heritage, so it should be known and preserved. The paper addressed the state-of-the-art literature—most of which was proposed in Italian—which can be driven easily by the sharing of historical and contemporary knowledge.

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“…[22] also suggests that the seating layouts could be straight, straight with curved ends, curved, angled or straight rows in blocks at different angles. Likewise, [25] asserts that the seat surfaces in auditorium are the most important absorption surface in the main hall of auditoria, since the surface of the seats is by large the most important sound absorbing surface in the main hall.…”

Section: Seatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Audit of Auditoriums in an Academic Setting, Ghana

Koranteng¹,

Sımons²,

Fiati³

2019

JBCPR

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Auditorium buildings are special structures needing much attention for it to function properly. Generally, consideration should be given to seating, sightlines, and acoustic requirements. In addition, the design should ensure performer-audience intimacy as much as possible. The focus of the study is to review design strategies for auditoria on the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi campus towards compliance and to develop solutions for improvements that will enhance the performance of 4 selected auditorium facilities. Case study, observation and measurements were the main strategies used. The results revealed that the approaches involved in auditorium designs are shape, volume, surface boundary dimensions and materials, stage, seating, foyers and sightlines. These parameters are grouped under acoustical, functional and programmatic parameters. Reverberation time calculated was high which indicated speech intelligibility problems, hence, improvement efforts were made to change the floor materials from polished tiles to carpeted floors, and high absorption wall claddings. In the process, the reverberation time was reduced from 1.47 -2.23 to 0.84 -1.73 for the studied buildings. The study recommends strict adherence to standards and guidelines, and for designers to have a keen focus on designing these special buildings. A renovation effort when undertaken, will lead to improvements in the performance of the selected buildings.

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Acoustics in the restoration of Italian historical opera houses: A review

Cited by 14 publications

References 15 publications

From Tangible to Intangible Heritage inside Italian Historical Opera Houses

From Tangible to Intangible Heritage inside Italian Historical Opera Houses

Italian-Style Opera Houses: A Historical Review

Audit of Auditoriums in an Academic Setting, Ghana

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