Robe makes a positive impression at the Baltic Opera Gdansk
The award‐winning Opera Baltycka (Baltic Opera) in Gdansk, on Poland’s stunning north coast, has invested in new Robe lighting fixtures with the purchase of 18 x TX1 PosiProfiles and four PAINTES which have been installed into its current building.
Lighting specialist Marek Lebida has been working full time at the Opera since the Robe fixtures arrived last year, supplied by Robe’s Polish distributor Prolight, and delivered via their local partner, Gdansk‐based Grupa Profit.
Before the new Robe luminaires arrived, there were other moving lights in the house, explained Baltic Opera’s head of technical, Krzystof Materny, but these were getting old and unreliable.
During Covid, they started thinking about ways to reduce power consumption – with a goal of using 20 ‐ 30 % less – part of which would be achieved by steadily transitioning to more LED lighting fixtures in the house rig.
The decision to purchase the Robe luminaires followed a demonstration by Prolight and consultations with some of their regular lighting designers including Marek as he had specified Robe regularly for multiple projects as a freelance LD.
The TX1 Posi Profile’s CRI was crucial in the choice, stated Marek, to get those nice natural flesh tones. “We set up real
‐life stage tests and compared the skin tones of the TX1s with some other products including the Opera’s existing profile moving lights, and the TX1 just killed it!” “There was really no comparison! So, after that everyone was convinced we were making the right decision,” confirmed Marek. He noted that even the more traditional ‘tungsten warrior’ lighting professionals working at the opera … saw that these LED fixtures looked fantastic! Marek admits that on one show he was watching where he saw the light source but not the device and thought it must be a tungsten fixture, so authentic is the emulation! The decision to purchase was made by a team of five including Krzystof and Baltic Opera technical director, Magda Zablotny.
Lighting for most of the opera productions is designed by in‐house LD Maciej Kaczerski, and Marek Lebida lights all the special shows, concerts and one offs.
Photos © Krzysztof Mystkowski and Louise Stickland
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