The highly acclaimed orchestral production of The Lord of the Rings Symphony made its debut in Germany recently at the Arena Leipzig. The 7,000-seat venue hosted two sold-out shows, replete with an 86-member orchestra, four soloists, and a choir of 130 voices.
The sound system provided by Leipzig-based ProTech GmbH, was based around two main arrays of eight Meyer Sound MILO® high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers and two MILO 120 high-power expanded coverage curvilinear array loudspeakers each. Six M’elodie™ ultracompact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers were used for frontfill, while two ground stacks of six M1D ultracompact curvilinear array loudspeakers each covered sidefill duties.
Further back in the hall, another hang of eight M1D cabinets, along with two arrays of six M’elodie boxes, were utilized as delay speakers. Low frequencies were covered by six 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers, stacked in pairs at the left, center, and right of the stage, and configured to project in a cardioid pattern to reduce low-frequency levels on stage. A pair of Galileo™ loudspeaker management systems controlled the system’s timing and distribution. Onstage, a pair of MM-4 miniature wide range loudspeakers provided monitors for the orchestra’s conductor.
“The Leipzig Arena is a majestic venue, but it’s an acoustically challenging room, as there’s quite a bit of glass and other reflective surfaces,” notes ProTech managing director Thomas Gleim. “We were already familiar with the M1D and M’elodie boxes, but this was the first time we had used the MILO arrays, and we were very impressed with their power and precision. The combination of MILO and Galileo really helped a lot in keeping reflections to a minimum.”
The Lord of the Rings Symphony is a two-hour symphonic adaptation of the 12 hours of music composer Howard Shore wrote for the three Lord of the Rings movies made by director Peter Jackson.
As Gleim reports, the two Leipzig shows drew standing ovations of more than 10 minutes each, along with numerous requests for repeat engagements and subsequent shows in Berlin and other cities. “I was very happy that we tried the MILO for the Leipzig venue,” he concludes. “It was really the ideal choice.